


Daryl's Double

by Butterflyfish



Category: The Walking Dead
Genre: AU ZA, Angst, Crazy Rick Grimes, Daddy Issues, Daddy Kink, Dubious Consent, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Smut, Good Friend Shane Walsh, Good Person Merle Dixon, Mental Instability, Merle Dixon Being an Asshole, Multi, Past Abuse, Past Child Abuse, Protective Daryl, Rape/Non-con Elements, Shane Being an Asshole, Shane Not Being An Asshole, Shane Walsh Lives, Shane and Rick's story is different, Smut, Sophia Peletier Lives, Swearing, Twins, What-If, canon non canon, mentions of abuse, probably smut
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-30
Updated: 2018-07-11
Packaged: 2018-08-18 17:40:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 40
Words: 70,874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8170297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Butterflyfish/pseuds/Butterflyfish
Summary: EDITED SUMMARY:Daryl and Merle Dixon have a sister, Brandi-Lynn, who survived the Apocalypse with them thanks to a call from Daryl at the start.Brash, rude, a Dixon through and through, but with her heart in the right place, how will the presence of Brandi-Lynn change the story we already know?Not everyone who survived, will, not everyone who lived, will. Daryl's twin, it seems, changes everything.Follows the story Canon / non-canon due to the inclusion of Brandi and the fact that Shane lives.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> I don't even know what this is. Daryl and Merle have a sister. *shrugs* Daryl's twin Brandi-Lynn. Let's see what happens!

The only Dixon in living memory whoever went to college was pretty sure she shouldn't have been there. She only went to Emmanuelle because they offered her an archery scholarship, and recently her studies had suffered the usual. She was too high and too drunk to attend her classes.

When, on a Monday morning at roughly 6am her mobile phone was ringing, she woke up in a pile of her own vomit and sweat, beside a guy she couldn't remember bringing home, and caught herself in the mirror. Seeing her makeup was all over her face, her chin length sandy blonde hair was sticking out like the worlds most crooked halo, and she was still wearing yesterday's clothes.

She pounced on her phone if only to stop the awful noise reverberating through her head.

"WHAT!?" She said harshly, really hoping she didnt have any classes today. Coach had said one more miss and she was out. For good.

"Brandi-Lynn?" Daryl's harsh voice grated on her head.

"What?" she asked him again, unsure if it was the drums in her head or the dope in her veins but she could hardly hear him. "Ya breaking up bro, what d'ya want?" She loved Daryl. They'd shared a womb, escaped into the world through the same hole, almost at the same time. They had a connection no one else understood, and which their big brother Merle was so jealous of, Daryl and Brandi-Lynn relished in that. 

"Sis, Brand? I can't hear ya. Ya there?"

"YES" She yelled down the phone "What d'ya want? Hurry cause I'm hangin' like a damned drained pig here" She heard Daryl take a deep breath, he was so worried.

"Ya gotta come home, ya gotta get ya shit and get home. World's goin' to pieces out there sis." Brandi-Lynn was confused, what the Hell was he on about? "I don't know what it is, brand' but ya gotta get home, we gotta stay together, they already got dad. Me you n' Merle's all that's left. Get here" The phone went dead and Brandi- Lynn stared at it a moment before launching it onto the floor. Dad? He'd called him 'dad'. Daryl never did that, none of them did. It was always 'The Ol' Man' or 'Will' So this was odd... very odd.

She got the feeling Daryl was deadly serious, and she heaved herself out of bed to go see what was up. Two hours 45 minutes from home never seemed far enough before, now it seemed far too far.

She packed a very quick and meagre bag of essentials, some spare clothes, wash bag and eyeliner pencils, grabbed her compound bow and her bike keys and headed to the campus parking lot.

She was aware she still had puke in her hair, and last night's makeup half way down her face, but it was 6 am, so it didnt even count as morning yet. Jesus, the guy she woke up with didn't even know she was gone.


	2. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning of Casual Dixon-esque racism

Brandi-Lynn looked around the camp she'd wound up in. Daryl was out hunting, demanding she stay behind and stay out of trouble, and Merle had run off to Atlanta. She was glad, to a point, her brother's could be jerks. What with Daryl always on her ass about behaving herslf and looking out for her, and Merle just... Merle.

But she felt more out of place here than she ever did at college. She was older than the other students, by quite a way, but shit at least she managed to make some friends. Here she was surrounded by stepford wives, 'spics and cops.

She continued cleaning her fingernails with her knife when that brunette bitch Lori approached her looking stern. As the woman's shadow fell over her she looked up.

"Hey" she managed, trying to sound disinterested. "What's up?" Lori had her hands on her hips, and her lips pursed. If she didn't know better she'd think she was back in high school, being accosted by one of the popular girls after having slept with her boyfriend 'and right before the big dance'. bleurgh.

"What's up, Brandi-Lynn, is that there is work to be done, and you're just sitting there doing there nothing. We gotta pull together we don't need you wasting the day." Brandi-Lynn rolled her eyes.

"What d'ya have in mind? Laundry? Maybe some cookin'?" Brandi-Lynn stabbed her knife into the ground and stood, she was a little taller than Lori, and she revelled in looking down her nose at the skank. "Sorry to break it to ya, but gender roles died in the '50s." Lori folded her arms and looked up at the younger woman.

"I don't care what you do, go fishing, collect and boil some water, you could have even gone hunting with your brother, but at the end of the day you can't be sitting around on your butt waiting for everything to be handed to you" She looked around her and then leaned forward, whispering like she was bestowing some big secret. "It's making people uncomfortable. If you want to stay, do your bit." She turned and waltzed off then, leaving Brandi-Lynn sneering at her back.

Who did she think she was, just 'cause she was bumping uglies with the dude who thought he was the leader. That cop with the big melted chocolate puppy eyes and a shock of dark curls.

Shane.

A sneaky little smirk spread on brandi-Lynn's mouth, and she nodded to herself, chewing her lip. She'd show Lori just how much of a team player she could be, she'd show her good.

Still smiing, though now as sweetly as she could muster, she approached Lori from behind and called her.

"Hey, Lori?" The brunette turned suddenly, caught off guard, and Brandi-Lynn knew she had her face just right as Lori smiled brightly at her.

"Brandi-Lynn" Brandi smiled a little wider.

"Why don't I go and get water with Shane? You stay here and watch Carl, I think he needs his mom right now" Would make a nice change, she didn't say, fed up of hearing Lori yelling to other people to 'watch Carl?' while she ran off into the woods to get her grind on with the cop. She fought against the smirk threatening on her mouth again, and after a beat, a split second in which her face changed completely from bright, to worried, and back again, Lori nodded.

"Sure, He's setting up in the jeep, right over there" She pointed and Brandi nodded her head, just one shallow dip, before heading over, removing her dirty denim jacket, switching her bow from one shoulder to the other as she did so revealing muscular arms and shapely shoulders in her vest top.

She snapped her gum to get Shane's attention, smiling as he looked up from where he knelt by the jeeps front drivers side wheel.

Ooooh, Hot... While ya down there buddy...

"hey" she said out loud. "Lori told me to get off my ass so I thought I'd help ya with the water run" she put her hands on her hips, which she knew pushed her tits out just so. She smiled at him as he stood to face her.

"I don't need your help" he said firmly, "maybe you can do some laundry" Brandi dropped her hands from her hips and pouted at him.

"aww come on, even the toughest guys need someone lookin' out for 'em these days. I'm good with an arra, not too bad with a gun. Could save ya life"  she raised a single eyebrow at him and almost winked. She stopped herself, too much too soon, Dixon, she chided. 

"A'ight" Shane said, handing her a large vat for water roughly, chucking it into her chest firmly. "Keep your eyes open and your mouth shut." She juggled the water barrel into one hand and saluted him mockingly. This was going to take more work than usual. 

She threw the barrel in the back of the jeep and hoped in the passenger seat without opening the door, swinging under the roof bar, and stretching her body out so her best rode up a little, revealing her taught abdomen. 

Shed fought hard for a six pack that never happened, but flat and tight would have to do. 

She chanced a glance out of the corner of her eye at Shane, and he was smirking as he reveresed the jeep and drove them away to the water. 

* * *

 "Enough already" Shane shot apparently out of nowhere. Brandi turned to him, completely unaware of what he was talking about. "pointing your hips at me, giving me your god damned bedroom eyes. I weren't born yesterday Dixon" he approached her at speed and grabbed her arms, talking directly into her face, quiet, stern and threatening. "I've dealt with girls like you all through my career. I ain't stupid, I don't know what game you're playing but it's not working with me. You're no different to the kids I used to pick up on their night walks." Brandi eyes him carefully, jutting her chin a little and licking her lips slowly. She didn't fail to notice Shane staring at her mouth as she did so. 

"There's a huge difference, Shane" she said very carefully. "I ain't no li'l girl" Shane eyed her a moment longer, let her arms go and looked her up and down.

"Don't offer what you ain't willing to give, little girl. You wouldn't know what to do if I took you up on that" Brandi smiled a little, raising an eyebrow.

"Sweetie ya've no idea what this bitch is bringin' to the table" Shane shook his head with a smile and hefted up a full barrel of water. He shook his head smiling again, walking to the jeep and carefully putting the barrel in the back.

Brandi smiled to herself, she loved a challenge. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm just winging this guys, please don't hate me.


	3. Chapter 2

"We should collect some more firewood while we're out here" Brandi said as Shane started the jeep. "Ain't much left back at camp." Shane shrugged and nodded at the same time, a little smirk dancing on his mouth. Brandi eyed him suspiciously.

"Really? I spent the first six years of my life in a trailer park and the next 13 or 14 in a house we only got cause the government kicked us out. I know how to pick out wood for burnin'" Shane shrugged again, still smiling like she was a joke, and it made her angry. Traditional Dixon rage bubbling inside her. She swallowed it down, he was testing her and she was gonna pass.

They pulled over a little while later, in an area of the quarry surrounded by trees. Brandi hopped out, grabbing her bow from the footwell, as Shane slammed the driver's door behind him and put his hands on his hips.

"Go on then, girl. Get gathering. I'll cover you" Brandi shot him a narrow eyed look, but nodded.

"Fine" she huffed. "I get it, paying my dues right?" Shane rolled his shoulders and smiled at her, but didn't say a word. She put her bow carefully on the car and nodded. Fine. She'd collect wood.   
But she was gonna want something in return, maybe a little wood of her own.

"Paying your dues would be something, that house of yours paid for by the tax payer, right?" Brandi span to face him, the rage too much to swallow now

"Like ya car?" She spat "ya uniform?" She stomped up to him with her fists clenched "ya damn hair cut? Ya stepford wife?" She sneered at him and looked him up and down. "Don't go thinking ya better'n me. Y'aint. Ya fuckin' ya best friends wife" Shane grabbed her biceps and pushed her backward out of his space.

"What do you care?" He asked her as she struggled to hold her footing "what difference does it make to you? My best friend died, and I got a little bit of comfort, and Lori got a little comfort, and Carl got himself a father figure to look up to. " Brandi snorted, loudly, and rolled her eyes, sending Shane a rather unbecoming shade of red. She turned away from him with an audible sigh and got on with wood gathering. She could do with the work out, and she wasn't shy of hard work. Will had made sure of that, Merle too. Daryl would wrap her in cotton wool and stick her in a bubble if he could, she weren't sure why, there was enough in the world he couldn't protect her from, especially since she left home, and really especially now.

She sighed as she worked, sneering, her mind going a thousand miles an hour. She wanted to sleep with Shane to give Lori something to think about but suddenly none of that mattered any more. Now she wanted to fuck him just to prove to him he was no better than she was. He hadn't found comfort in Lori, she was pussy, like any other, and none of the rest were fuckable.

Roll in Brandi-Lynn Dixon.

She gathered half a jeep full of firewood, and stood panting with her hands in the jeeps bed.

"That's it, we're full" she said, looking up at him from blonde bangs that hung in points in her eyes, wet with sweat. She knew her body would be grimy, and she could feel a bead of sweat trickling slowly between her breasts.

She also knew she was hot, and that glistening sweaty skin had won her a few beds in the last few years.

Shane looked her over and licked his lips slowly, before turning away and getting in the vehicle.

"Get in" he yelled over his shoulder, still with that damned look on his face. She dived in next to him, running her hands slowly through her short hair and flexing her arms.

Screw it, who, what, why or where he was didn't matter. Shane was dark and handsome, and she hadn't had sex in a couple of weeks.

When they got back to camp Lori was on them in an instant. Flapping her jaw about what took so long and where had they been, but there wasn't time to get into an argument, as the radio hissed with static and a voice came over.

"Is that T Dog?" Amy asked in a fluster "is that them?" Dale was on top of his RV fiddling with the controls on the CB.

"Sure sounds like them." Brandi rolled her eyes. Why was he fiddling? They'd heard clear enough. The guys in Atlanta were stuck. She frowned. Not with Merle. Sure he was a dick but he was brave and he was strong, and he'd get them back. Providing he hadn't got in one of his moods and got all righteous about being out there with T-Dog, Jacqui, and Morales.

Shane was shouting, and Amy had stormed off, followed by Lori, and she noticed Shane had stopped shouting, giving her a look that she couldn't decipher.

"You gonna run off crying too? Your brother's out there" Brandi shrugged at him.

"My brother's old 'nuff n ugly 'nuff to help himself. They'll be back, then ya'll have egg on ya face" Shane gave a little laugh.

"However if you wanna go after them, that I wouldn't be opposed to" Brandi stopped short of sticking her tongue out at him. What an ass.

She would go, if Daryl wasn't going to be back any minute, he'd go mad if she weren't there. He liked to think he was strong and brave like Merle, but he was born with a bigger pussy than she was. He was all mouth, and when Merle wasn't around, which always used to be often, he was a sweetheart. A real pussycat.

Still, they'd be back, so it didn't matter.

Until of course he didn't come back, then it mattered. Then it mattered a great big deal.   
Glenn was back first, hooning up the mountain with all his noise. Brandi watched as people accosted him, poor kid, then a van turned up, and boy did things get interesting then. A cop, sheriff's deputy according to his shirt sleeves, had found the Atlanta crew and helped them out. Suddenly more interested Brandi approached, just as the new cop got a look at the old cop and Shane's face was a picture.

Then the shit really hit, when the new guy went running to Lori and Carl and Shane looked like he'd swallowed a ton of shit. Brandi covered her mouth, but she couldn't help the sounds that escaped.

"Oh Hell no, no way" she said behind her palm. This was too much, too good to be true. A damned soap opera happening before her very eyes.

But Merle didn't come out of the truck, And she dropped her hand to her side approaching the new guy.

"Where's my brother?" She asked him cautiously, and he looked around for help.

"This certainly isn't a Daryl" he said to T dog, who shook his head.

"Nah, this is Brandi-Lynn, Daryl's twin and the calmer of the three" she narrowed her eyes at T, eyeing the new guy suspiciously.

"What's it matter if I'm calm? Where the fuck's my brother?" Rick explained, and Brandi-Lynn almost socked him the mouth. He expected it, she saw him wince and cringe away, but she got as far as lifting her fist and punching the dirt in front of her. She looked this Rick right in the eyes, feeling sorry for him, for what Shane did to him, and Lori, and for what Daryl might do.

"I can only warn ya that my brother is an angry li'l man, Sheriff. There're times he thinks the sun shines outta Merle's ass. " she shrugged her shoulders. "I know Merle's a dick, I ain't blind n I ain't stupid, but he's family, n if he's dead... I can't be held responsible if I put ya on ya ass." Rick nodded at her.

"I appreciate that" he said, like he didn't appreciate it at all. She shrugged her shoulders again and got up from the crouch she'd got into and walked on her way. It would soon be time to get the fires lit, sooner the better before night fell and they had to calm the flames.


	4. Chapter 3

"Yo Merle!" Daryl's voice rang out, and Brandi stood from where she sat outside their tent. She chewed her lip a little, and rushed forward, throwing herself at Daryl.

"Hey girl" he managed as she knocked the wind out of him in a bear hug. He squeezed her hard. "Got us some Squirl," he said, letting her go. "Let's stew 'em up. Where's Merle?" She chewed her lip again and Daryl narrowed his eyes at her.

"What?" She looked at Shane over Daryl's shoulder, who stepped up to explain.

"Daryl? There was a problem," Rick jumped in then, gave his side of the story.

As expected, Daryl went a bit nuts. Shane got his arms around his neck and Brandi couldn't just watch.

"Hey, ya'll calm down, Jesus. This ain't helpin' no one. Daryl, listen to the man."

"Ya knew this?" Daryl accused her trying to see her as best he could in a choke hold. "ya knew n ya did nothin'? The fuck is wrong with ya Brand?" She shrugged at him, unable to do anything else.

"Just let Rick talk, OK? Calm y'ass down and listen for once in ya life" she folded her arms and watched as Daryl slowly came around and Shane let him go. He gave her a small nod of appreciation, and she shrugged at him. She did it for Daryl, not anyone else. He had to calm down for his own good.

"Tell me where he is" Daryl was yelling, eyes wet as he tried not to cry in front of everyone. Brandi knew he was soft for Merle but crying was stupid. Merle'd be ok, he only had to look after Merle, and that's what he always did best. "Tell me where he is so's I can go get him"

"I'll go with ya" Brandi said, but Daryl shook his head at her.

"Like hell ya will. Stay here, ain't losin' you too." Rick was rolling his shoulders, and he had something to say.

"I'll go one better. I'll show you."

***

There was outcry from Lori and Shane, and as Daryl got ready to leave Brandi weren't too happy either.

"What're ya doin'?" She asked as Daryl prepared for his journey into the city. "Riskin' ya life... For Merle. Merle, Daryl. Are ya thinkin' straight?" Daryl eyed her carefully for a moment over the crossbow he was cleaning. His eyes were narrow and hard and Brandi knew she'd said the wrong thing even before he opened his mouth.

"D'ya hear yaself? He's our brother." Brandi rolled her eyes.

"Barely"

"We ain't got nothin' else, Brandi-Lynn. These people, they ain't like us, n they don't get it, Merle's family." Brandi rubbed her face and stretched her legs out in front of her. Daryl weren't about to listen. He was such a pain when Merle was around.

"What he ever do for you, Dare?" She asked softly, and Daryl eyed her again, putting his bow back together.

"He's family" he said gruffly, like that was an answer for everything.

"So was daddy" she said purposefully, not looking at him.

"Don't you call him that" Daryl was getting irate, and honestly Brandi didn't want him running off half cocked.

"Ya don't know the city, ain't like runnin' round the woods, bro. Just be careful, n if Merle ain't there, ya jus' come back, k?" She eyed him over his crossbow, now sitting complete and clean on his lap, and Daryl gave her a small nod.

"K" he whispered. He grabbed his bow and left the hot sweaty confines of the tent, and Brandi followed. "Where's ya bow?" He asked her, and she pointed, "should be on ya back, Brand'. Where's ya gun?"

"In my pants, stop it Daryl."

"Ya gotta be armed all the time, those geeks'll not stop to think. N remember to get 'em in the brain" he pointed roughly at his temple. He still couldn't look at her, she smiled at him and put an arm around his shoulder.

"I'll be fine." She said to him gently. "I'm'ma Dixon" she said more vehemently. Daryl gave her a half smile, clearly not believing a word. He turned to her and finally locked his narrow blue eyes on her matching ones.

"Trouble comes, gets too hot here, ya run, Brandi. I'll find ya, but ya don't stick around n try'n be no hero. Ya run" she nodded, her face serious, and he squeezed his arms around her until she thought she might suffocate.

Then he was gone, and it was back to life as normal in the quarry.

***

She dressed the Squirrel just for something to do, trying not to think about her brothers. She heard a lot of murmuring and crying over in the main camp, but she weren't about to jump up and check it out.

That dumb bitch Lori was probably torn up about what to do with her two lovers stuck in the hole all together. She felt herself smirk at that. Jesus what a turnaround. She shook her head and slammed the last squirrel on her cutting stone, slicing carefully down its belly with her knife.

***

That night, when everyone was eating fish and gathered around a single fire she joined in. She didn't say much, just observed, though she did plonk herself next to Shane, squeezing in on a tree trunk where there wasn't really enough room.

Their thighs touched right to the hip, and she kept brushing her arm against his. He seemed uncomfortable, and somewhat put out by his friends return-even if he had left again- and didn't take too much notice.

Dale started telling some story about time, explaining why he wound his watch everyday. Dixon's didn't use watches. The passage of time to her family was the movement of the earth around the sun. Wherever the sun was, they knew roughly, and it was enough. It was their clock, it was their compass, it was their calendar.

She brushed a hand through her hair, thinking about her goddamned brothers again, and rest her elbow on Shane's shoulder. He didn't seem to notice, so she slid her arm back until her hand was on his shoulder instead, and she looked around to see Lori trying not to look.

The camp residents sat around that fire in a sort of awkward silence then, like calm before a storm they sensed was coming but not quite in the forefront of their brains.

There was a storm alright, everything suddenly went to hell in a cacophony of noise, screams, gunfire. The scent of spent gunpowder hit brandi's nose before she even knew what all was happening, metallic and ashy.

She drew her bow, which had been by her side all evening thanks to Daryl's warning, and she started letting arrows fly.   
The geeks were everywhere, Walkers some called them, shamblers, Brandi thought was better by how they moved. Shane was trying to lead people away but as she stood, flinging arrows like she never had before, she could see people just panicking and getting bitten for their trouble.

Her stomach lurched hard and threatened to reveal her fish supper as she watched Shane blow the face off one of the monsters just feet in front of her. The noise was all Comsuming, and she wondered if it would bring more of them, and what had led them here in the first place. Her mind fought over its own flight or fight response and Daryl's words echoed in her memory.

Rather than running, she got up high as she could on a steep bank, letting arrows fly below her into the faces of the walkers she could get at, all the time the noise was deafening, with screams and Shane yelling at people to follow him.

A stray bullet glanced past her bicep and grazed it, though in her state of high anxiety she barely felt it.

Her heart was pounding at a thousand miles per hour when it was suddenly over, and Daryl, Rick, T dog and Glenn were in the middle of the whole thing looking despondent.

"Daryl!" She yyelled knowing he'd be looking for her among the dead, leaping from her high point straight into his arms. He caught her with ease and she planted a hefty kiss on his temple, but he pushed her back, looking her over.

"Brandi?" He asked worried, and she noticed various pairs of eyes on her.

"Stray bullet, it's barely a Scratch" she argued, but suddenly it was burning with searing hot pain and she saw stars, as though it had just happened.

"Brand?" She heard Daryl again, though he sounded far away. She looked at her arm, the edges of the wound were black and crinkled.

"Oh" she managed, just as someone else realised that Andrea and Amy were on the floor by the RV. Daryl handed her a rag to stem the flow of blood and she asked the question she was sure she knew the answer to already.

"Merle?"

"Gone" he said, he didn't elaborate. There wasn't really time. The Geeks had to be dealt with, and the dead people, and... Amy.

***

"We're gonna, have to er, ensure they've all been got in the brain, ain't we?" Brandi said quietly. Daryl nodded at her.

They'd been up all night, watching Amy and Andrea, waiting for the obvious to happen.

"Why don't we get this over with?" He asked the rest of the group, lined up just watching. "C'mon man she's gonna turn. Take the shot, get it over with." Brandi elbowed him in the ribs, hard.

"Don't be a dick" she said quietly, taking his rag from her arm and looking at the wound with a grimace. It was still oozing.

"Wan' me to cauterise that?" Daryl said with a smirk, Brandi shook her head.

"I want ya to shut ya face" she said, shoving her elbow in his ribs again.

Daryl got up and marched over to the others

"C'mon, I could get her from here, she's a tickin' time bomb." He made a gun with his fingers and mock took the shot. Brandi got up and stormed over to him, punching his arm with all she could muster.

"Leave it Dare. C'mon, there's work to do. We'll worry about Amy later." She lowered her voice. "If she turns she's just one, we'll do it," He looked back at the two blondes but followed Brandi towards the piles of bodies they'd already begun to stack the night before. 


	5. Chapter 4

  
"A walker got Jim!" Brandi's head shot up and Daryl Was off like a shot to see what was what, and if Jacqui was telling the truth. He lifted Jim's shirt and it was plain to see he was done. A large set of teeth had left their mark on his torso.

"I'm OK" he kept saying, over and over as if repeating it might make it true. Brandi felt sick. This man was dying in front of them, already dead even. Daryl still hadn't explained about Merle.  
Was he in the same situation? She hoped not. He was a jerk but he was still her big brother.

"I say we put a pick axe in his head, and the dead girl's, n be done" Daryl was yelling, and Brandi could only watch it all unfold in front of her. He launched himself at Jim, pick axe in his hands, and then Rick had a gun to his head, and she soon snapped to.

"Woah" she yelled, grabbing the pick axe high up by the head. She looked at Rick and at Shane, tried to convey in a single look that she could deal with Daryl, but they didn't get it.

"We don't kill the living" Rick warned, and Daryl all but spat back how funny that was, being said by a man with a gun to his head. Brandi tugged on the axe a little, and Daryl looked at her finally.

"Stop it. I told ya to visit me in college more often. Might'a learned some Damn compassion." She watched as Rick led Jim away for his own safety.

"He is sick, and he is going to die. Let him do it in his own time" Daryl glared at her, axe still in his hands. He moved off to attack another from the walker pile, burying the axe in a walker's head over and over again, he finished with a swift kick to the monster's ribs, and seemed to be a lot calmer when he was done.

"Better?" She asked him, accusatory, but he just looked at her grimly, so she sauntered off to help Glenn.

******

"We're heading for the cdc. They might be able to help. Have a think about it, if you want to come along we'll be happy to have you"

Brandi felt a little nudge against her thigh and turned to find Daryl looking at her confused.

"Centre for disease control" she whispered as the murmurs around them rose. "They might be working in a cure" he narrowed his eyes at her and she shrugged at him. "I don't know, Daryl. I didn't do science, I was there studying English, and even then I didn't really study. Spent all my time gettin' high n laid" Daryl screwed his face up at that.

"I din't need that much information" she shrugged again.

"It's the truth" Daryl nodded and hummed

"Maybe ya keep shit like that to yaself from now on" Brandi gave Daryl a goofy grin, slapping him on the shoulder before getting up to carry on the day's work.

*****

Amy woke up, reaching and stretching for Andrea's flesh. Watching on tenter hooks was almost painful, but Brandi knew she wasn't the only one with her hand on her gun. She felt her brother stiffen up beside her, and she daren't blink even as sweat ran into her eyes.

But Andrea had it covered, and she shot that dead girl right in the temple.

As Daryl gave a nod of appreciation, Brandi found herself just staring in shock, Amy's blood, bone and brain just littering the ground like so much jello.

She swallowed hard and took a deep shaking breath, leaving Amy and Andrea in peace on legs that felt weak. Daryl grabbed and squeezed her shoulder as she approached, but his method of comfort wasn't enough. Not this time.

She was wondering if she could do that, to Daryl, for Daryl, and if he would do it for her. Had he done it for Will or had he and Merle just run like they always did, cause Will wasn't worth it, or they didn't have the guts.

It didn't matter now, but it might matter in the future. And if attacks like that were gonna become frequent she needed to know.

******

When that jerk off Jenner finally let them in to the CDC Brandi was incensed to hear they'd have to take a blood test. Because their blood type and DNA still mattered, she thought, rolling her eyes.

They'd travelled over a day to get here, and they hadn't eaten for some time. It was no wonder Andrea was wobbly on her feet,  
But Jenner noticed, and he made them a huge banquet of food and wine and spirits.

But something felt wrong. Jenner was quiet all through dinner, and Brandi knew instantly that wasn't right. He watched them eating and drinking, and she had to look away as Daryl poured her more alcohol, himself full of life.

Shane was dark and brooding, Andrea not buying it either. Brandi couldn't shake the feeling that something was going on that Jenner wasn't sharing, but eventually Daryl got her drunk enough that she no longer cared, and all that seemed to matter was celebrating getting as far as they had.

******

Brandi was ambling the halls.  
Dinner was over and she had enough southern comfort in her veins to keep her lit til the following afternoon.

She heard a door slam, and looked up to see Shane in front of her. He looked pissed, angry and drunk and even with her eyes all squiffy he looked hot as all Hell.

"Hey" she managed, almost falling into him and grabbing the wall to steady herself. "Woah" she laughed at herself, looking Shane over. "Hey, what happened to ya neck?" It was scratched, three red marks like he'd been attacked by a cat, or maybe a bear. The thought struck her as funny, and she giggled to herself, reaching out and gently caressing the marks on him.

"Where's ya brother?" Shane asked her harshly and she shrugged her shoulders at him. He pursed his lips and ran his hands through his hair and over his head.

"Wanna show me what you're bringing to the table?" He asked her, not looking her in the eye. Brandi smiled, a big cheesy sloppy grin.

"Hell yeah I do. Lead the way, officer" she gave him a slow and clumsy wink, and he grabbed her bicep in his fist, forcibly, painfully, dragging her down the hall to the room he was using as his own.

He was hard almost they instant they fell on the couch together, tearing at each other's clothes and sharing drunken sloppy kisses.  
He was firm with her, maybe a little too much for most, but Brandi wasn't shy of a firm hand and relished in the tightness he gripped her ass with as she rode him. She came loudly,in a blur of colour and noise, and as he unloaded into her he bit down hard on her shoulder.

She thought probably to keep from screaming Lori's name, but it wasn't the first time and probably wouldn't be the last, that who she was with was thinking of someone else.

She got hers, that's what counted.

As she dressed she looked him up and down, sitting in the couch where she'd left him, staring into the middle distance blankly.

"Y'aint no better'n me" she said quietly as she headed for the door. "I ain't stupid n I ain't blind. I see ya scratches. I know where they came from" finally he looked at her, but his face was angry.

She couldn't help laughing as he swore, grabbing his shoe and throwing it in her direction, hard.  
She heard it hit the door behind her as she closed it, still laughing as she went to find Daryl and the room they'd claimed for themselves.

"Where ya been, Brandi-Lynn" Daryl slurred as she crept through the room to the couch.

"Out" Daryl narrowed his eyes at her then pulled a face.

"No ya didn't" he said, and she wasn't sure if it was a question. She smiled slyly and shrugged her shoulders.

"None ya business, Dare." He snorted and rolled over on the floor so his back was to her. She collapsed on the couch, a small smile still toying with her lips.

"Ya nothin' but a dirty whore, Brandi. I thought better of ya" she rolled her eyes

"Oh fuck you, Y'aint my dad" she giggled to herself, not sure what was funny.

"Nah, I'm better'n him, I'm lookin' out for ya" Brandi didn't answer, she didn't need to. She didn't have to explain herself to her brother or anyone.

 


	6. Chapter 5

In the morning, over powdered eggs and hangovers, eyebrows were raised at the state of Shane's neck. Brandi stared at the table, a smirk on her lips and Daryl elbowed her hard in the ribs as Shane explained that it wasn't at all like him to scratch himself in the night. He shared a look with Lori, and Brandi almost choked on her eggs holding back a guffaw. Daryl elbowed her again, and she spat eggs all over her plate.

"Ugh, gross!" Carl exclaimed, and he and Sophia fell into a fit of giggles. Brandi looked at her plate of ruined food and slapped Daryl firmly on the back of the head.

"'Ya doin', jack off?" She muttered under her breath at him, and he smirked at her, facing the table, away from everyone's stares.

"I see ya hickey" he all but mouthed silently. She marvelled at how shy he was when she was so open and forward. Wondered at how they were twins, but also opposites.

"Ain't a hickey, the bastard bit me" she whispered back.

***

Trying to take in Jenner's little home movie with a banging head and a mouth like the desert wasn't much fun, but it was intriguing, all the same.

Brandi stood next to Daryl watching as the colours chasing up and down the synapses faded to nothing, and then the dark red matter came in, and the person, who was no longer a person, came back to some form of semi life before being shot.

Then Dale asked about the clock, and shit got very real very quick.  
Suddenly, they were running around packing their things, grabbing their stuff, and hoping to get the hell out before the damned air caught fire, the very fucking air.

"No pain" Jenner said as they lost their minds "an end to sorrow, grief. Regret." Daryl left Brandi's side in a split second and launched himself at the doors. "You've seen what this does" Jenner continued, ignoring Daryl's outburst, ignoring the stunned and disbelieving faces of those all around him.

An argument broke out. She watched, shocked into silence, as Shane and Daryl both went for Jenner. As Carol cried that Sophia shouldn't have to die that way.  
She just watched, unable to move, to yell, to help.

She didn't know who or what got the doors open, but suddenly Daryl was screaming in her face to move

"Dammit Brandi move!" And grabbing her by the top of her arm to drag her out.

She didn't even notice they'd left any one behind, not until she was in the truck with TDog and Daryl, her and Merle's Bikes in the bed, and the CDC burst into rumbling flames in front of them. The sudden brightness hurting her eyes and making her squint.  
Then TDog spoke up.

"Dale and Andrea, Jacqui. They're gone. They're gone"

***

All the losses were getting hard to take. Brandi sat in the truck, staring out the windows as they headed into the high way.

"Do we even know where we're goin'?" Daryl asked quietly, and TDog shook his head

"Far away from there, man, far away from there" Brandi shook her head, hugging herself with her arms across her chest. Daryl reached across and hit the horn on the truck. TDog hushed him in a panic, but the RV slowed to a stop in front of them and everyone got out onto the road.

"Where're we headed?" Daryl asked, his voice hushed. Shane stepped up,

"Fort Benning. Should'a headed there in the first place" Rick's eyes glazed before he rolled them, stretching out his neck at the same time. "Hey man" Shane approached him "I get why you did this, why we went to the CDC, I get that. But I believe Fort Benning is the answer." Rick glared at him, his eyes narrowing, as if to say that the deaths were not on him. "We lost three people today, that wouldn't've happened"

"Hey" Brandi cut Shane off. Before he and Rick could get into another argument. "What's done is done. Now if we go to Fort Benning we need fuel, and we need supplies," she looked around her, they were on the highway, and it was laced with broken down and abandoned vehicles. She didn't need to say anything else.

"This is a graveyard" Lori said with a shake of her head, but Brandi was already moving, Shane and Daryl too. Fuck what Lori wanted, and her damn outdated morals, they needed fuel and supplies.

Brandi heard Lori tell Carl to stay in her sight, knowing from experience that the kid wouldn't. He was ten, maybe eleven, he wasn't about to do as he was told.  
She kept half an eye on the little ones as she trawled through the trunk of a car for anything that might be of use.

***

It was a while later that she heard Daryl hiss her name, she looked over and saw a sight that frightened her, chilled her right to the bone. A hundred walkers, maybe more, were making their way through the cars, shuffling and groaning and heading straight for them.

"Shit" she whispered, hitting the deck just as everyone else seemed to, and edging herself sideways under a car.

She found herself looking across at Sophia, and she put her finger to her lips. Sophia nodded vehemently, but she also looked just frightened enough that she might bolt any second.

Feet began to shuffle past her, and the stench of so many dead seemed to permeate right through her skin. She covered her mouth and nose with her hand, hoping she could stave off any gagging the smell might bring on, with her sour head and belly still half full of whiskey based liquor, it wasn't exactly unlikely. She kept her focus on Sophia, and the little girl's wide and scared eyes.  
Poor girl had had a life of shit.

It was no secret that Ed was beating her mom all to hell everyday, and Carol often turned up in the morning with fresh bruises. Brandi had caught him looking at Sophia in a way perhaps he shouldn't have been, too, and it made her angry. So angry.

Will, her damned piece of shit daddy, had looked at her like that. Hell, he waited for her mama to die, and then Brandi came up with all the excuses. He was lonely, he needed comfort.

She knew different now, of course, but at the time, it was love and attention and it was daddy. It was wrong but that was ok.

She sneered behind her hand at the thought of the vile man. Who did things to her she didn't understand, the man who beat her brother's half to death.  
She looked at Sophia, and she hoped to god that Ed had never touched her that way.

Eventually the feet thinned out, and gradually she noticed that no more were passing by. Brandi dropped her hand from her mouth and took a deep breath, looking around her carefully before moving. She had no idea where Daryl was, no clue about any of the others, but she could see Sophia, and she gave the girl a smile.

Sophia took that to mean the coast was clear and edged from the car to have a look around.  
Brandi almost flew forward where she was but something glued her to the ground. She heard Sophia squeal, and suddenly a walker was under the car with her and she bolted.

"Shit" Brandi breathed again, getting up and out in time to see Rick chasing after Sophia and two walkers.

"Y'ok?" Daryl was right beside her, covered in blood and smelling like the dead.

"L'il girl just ran off." She said, looking at the woodland where Sophia and Rick had disappeared. Daryl shook his head.

"Hey" he said, a warning tone to his voice and she nodded at him.

"Yeah, I'm fine, you?" He shrugged at her, and nodded towards TDog.

"Better'n him" he said quietly, and Brandi noticed how TDog was bleeding profusely from a large gash in his arm.

"Oh Jesus"

***

Rick appeared from the bushes, faced directly with a broken Carol, who launched herself at him immediately.

"You didn't find her?" She asked, and he looked confused, explained how he drew the walkers away, and told her if she had to run just what to do.

"She didn't come back?" He finished, looking disheartened. Brandi looked at Daryl, knowing instantly what he was thinking.

"No, Daryl, please. We already lost Merle..."

"I can't leave it, lookit her mama." Daryl shook Brandi's hands off his arm and stepped forward, calling Rick.

"Then I'm comin' too" Brandi said, grabbing for him again. Daryl narrowed his eyes at her and sneered.

"Ya still know what ya doin'? Better not've turned into no city slicker, what with goin' to college" Brandi pursed her lips at him, keeping her voice low as Rick approached them.

"Screw off Dare, two sets'a eyes're better'n one. I c'n at least keep these goof offs from stompin' all over the trail"

Rick agreed it would be helpful, and was appreciative, they took Glenn and Shane too for good measure, though Brandi and Daryl both knew too many people would cause more harm than good.

***

Brandi found herself walking next to Shane.  
"How's ya neck?" She asked slyly, sarcastically. He didn't look at her, but he smirked a little  
"How's yours?" He countered, and a smirk spread on her face, too. She looked up to see Rick eyeing them suspiciously, then Daryl was dragging her away again.

"Get ya damn hands off'a me" she said, shaking him away.

"Stay away from him Brand. He's bad news"

"Here!" Rick yelled out to them, stopping a fight before it started "I left her right here"


	7. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: Non Con, sort of, you'll see why sort of if you read it.

Brandi was crouched low on the ground, investigating the prints Daryl had found. He was right, Sophia had done what Rick said, she'd headed for the road, the group. So where the Hell was she?

Rick told Shane and Glenn to go back, said he and Daryl would keep looking. She narrowed her eyes, but Daryl spoke up for her.

"Brandi's lived in woods all her life too, we should bring her along" Rick nodded a little, agreeing cautiously. She and Rick hadn't spoken much, she wondered if he trusted her.

They went as far as they could in what little daylight was left. Daryl caught Sophia's tracks, turning on her heel and veering off to the right.

"Something scared her?" Rick asked, but Brandi shook her head, there was nothing else even here.

"Only prints are hers, maybe she heard somethin', saw somethin'?" Daryl was chewing his lip, and Brandi wondered if it was just Sophia's imagination that had her running in the wrong direction. She sure had a mean imagination at 12, and she didn't live her childhood among the living dead. She hadn't seen her father eaten alive, or her mother half beat to hell.

Daddy saved that for her brothers.

She shook her head, finding it difficult to stay focussed.

"I'm'a head back" she said, rather suddenly. "You guys keep goin', I'll pick up with ya in the mornin'." And she headed straight forward, for the road.

*****

She didn't sleep at all. She'd taken up the entire backseat of Carol's car and just stared at the roof lining. Daryl and Rick came back empty handed, as she thought they would, and she was petrified that they would never find the little girl. Somehow Sophia meant so much, and finding her felt like it would fix something, keep them all together.

She'd gotten under Brandi's skin, and she was determined, but with a lack of rest, tracking in the morning would be hard going.

There was a sudden and light knock at the window, she looked to see Shane's face. His mouth smirking a lopsided grin, his eyebrow cocked. She rolled her eyes and unwound the manual handle for the window.

"What?" She asked him, too tired and too desperate to be coy or flirtatious. He licked his lips and she rolled her eyes, winding the window shut again and throwing herself back on the seats.  
He opened the door. The goddamn freak opened the door! "What?" She asked him again, getting frustrated now. "I ain't fuckin' ya again. That was a one time offer, a try before ya buy. Bitch weren't impressed so... Buh bye" she tried to pull the door closed but he held it firmly, and despite the muscles pulling back a bow string had given her, Brandi couldn't pull it away from him.

"C'mon now, don't be like that" he began to crawl in, and the only place with any room was right on top of her. He was heavy, and his face, now inches from hers, turned sour and focused. "Ain't like you got many choices" he said darkly, and Brandi's stomach rolled with fear. She tried to back away and cracked her head on the opposite rear door, and Shane's hands were suddenly on her pants.

Still reeling from the bang on her crown, she found it hard to focus enough to get him off her, and the only real instrument she had to hand was herself. As Shane finally got her belt and jeans undone, sliding his hand inside and fingering her underwear, she realised now she couldn't even bring her knee up into his groin. With her options disappearing fast she did the only thing she could think of, forcing her body and head up as hard as she could, head butting him across the bridge of the nose just as he looked up at her.

It wiped the smile off his face, but she got covered in blood as his nose let go and he emitted quite a roar which she hoped wouldn't wake anyone.

"You think that'll stop me?" He said, grinning at her like a madman, blood dripping from his nose all over her face and neck "might'a worked with your daddy, but I ain't going anywhere 'til I get mine" Brandi was clean out of options, but she managed to quip:

"Well, daddy had a bigger dick," which had him roaring with laughter as he shoved his dick inside her dry, causing her to clench her jaw to keep from yelling in pain.

*****

In the morning, as Everyone was finally waking up, Daryl and Brandi up at the the crack of dawn's ass like they were taught, Brandi noticed Daryl giving her stink eye.

"What?" She raised an eyebrow at him, and he run a finger over her forehead. It hurt, a lot.

"Where's the bruise come from? N why's ya face all bloody?" Instead of answering she grabbed the rag from Daryl's back pocket and poured a little of her water ration on it. She cleaned her face and Daryl's eyes narrowed impossibly farther. "It ain't yours? What the Hell, Brand? I din't sleep all night cause some jackass was brayin', n ya out there gettin' covered in someone else's blood?" She didn't have the words, she shrugged at him, not knowing what to say.

_'Oh, yeah that was Shane, he was raping me, although in the end it felt better'n I thought so... You know, I guess we was just fuckin'... Athough I daren't pee this mornin' cause my insides are burnin' from the chaffin''_

If he got in a fight with Shane right now over her, he would lose. Shane was in a dark place. Daryl could be a mouthy bastard but he wasn't all that strong, not like Shane, who outweighed him considerably. That, and he was a hot head. Sometimes in a fight you could get further with your mind, she knew that much.  
Fists were all well and good if you wanted to lose teeth.

"S'nothin'" she grunted quietly, not meeting his eyes. "Let's go'n find this li'l'un"

*****

Rick made Glenn stay behind and keep an eye on TDog, who was starting to look incredibly worse for wear, and his makeshift bandage was sopping and wet through with blood. Glenn argued a little, but as he always did he gave in, stayed behind, and let everyone else go and hunt for the little girl whose fear got too big.

They walked in formation through the woods, like cops on the hunt for someone rather than trackers. It got Brandi's back up because it was such a slow way to go, though Rick and Shane were convinced they'd miss less this way. Daryl was just keeping his head down, throwing dirty looks her way every now and then, and she knew he was wondering about the night before, and how she'd woken up covered in blood. she wanted him to keep his head in the game, he needed too. This little girl was important. Brandi still couldn't work out why, but she definitely was. 

Shane was avoiding her, obviously going out of his way not to look at her, speak to her, or be near her. It suited her fine, but Daryl was as observant as he was protective, and the avoidance wouldn't be missed. She cursed the whole damn debacle under breath, and Daryl was on her almost instantly.

"What's up?" He asked, concerned. She looked at him, and shook her head. "Brandi!" He admonished quietly, and she chanced a look around her, no one had paid any mind, all too concerned, as they should have been, with finding any trace of Sophia.

"Concentrate on findin' the kid" She hissed at him "'m fine" She could tell he didn't believe a word of it, but what could she do, or say for that matter?

 When the lonely looking tent they found in the woods turned out to hold nothing but an 'opt out' in the form of a dead walker with a bullet hole in his head the size of a man's fist, Brandi had to try really hard not to just lose her shit. It was a lead, a good one, and it had shot itself down to nothing but half a person and a handful of maggots. She lowered her bow and scrubbed at her face with her now free hand.

This was too hard, even for a Dixon, who was brought up hard. People had died, families were breaking up, no one was thinking twice about suicide, or rape.

She looked over at Shane, still purposefully not catching her eye, and she couldn't blame him, no matter how she tried. It was a stupid and insane thing to do and he _knew_ it. Guilt and regret were written all over his face.

She caught Daryl's eye as she turned back to the tent of doom with a huff. He was facing the floor, but his head was turned up to her, his eyes on hers like laser beams, boring in to her to try and read her mind. She looked at the sky, sighing loudly and sagging though her shoulders.

"What he do?" Daryl queried her, looking instantly distrustful of Shane, who he threw a quick glance to as he finished. She shook her head.

"Leave it"

"So he did do somethin'. He hurt ya?" Brandi sighed again, picking her feet up and speeding forward a little, knowing Daryl would follow but just wanting to be _away._

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't want hate for making Brandi-Lynn sort of enjoy that. She's a very dark and twisted creature, as you will see. Her history dictates that she seeks affirmation and exterior validation in the form of sex thanks to her daddy.... sorry


	8. Chapter 7

When the distant call of bells rang through the quiet forest Brandi's feet just stopped moving. Daryl almost crashed into her back and she couldn't even find the words to apologise.

"Which way?!" Rick yelled, also approaching them from behind. Daryl pointed vaguely

"This way" he said "I think, shit it's hard to tell out here" Brandi swallowed the hard lump that had formed in her throat, but it just stuck in her chest instead.

"Could be her?" she asked hopefully. "Could it?"

"Or someone signalling they found her" Shane said, storming past in the direction Daryl had pointed. Brandi took a deep breath, this was crazy, could it be? Would Sophia even have the strength after not eating so long to pull a damn bell rope? She didn't think she would have, a fully grown adult with a healthy bit of muscle in her arms and shoulders from bow pulling. She found her feet just as Daryl pushed her shoulder abruptly, and got running to catch up with the others in the rough direction of the noise.

***** 

They came upon a small single story Baptist church stuck out in the middle of the woods in it's own clear patch of bright green grass. 

"This ain't it" Shane called to Rick, breathless "Can't be it man there's no steeple, HEY" Rick was off though, ignoring Shane, ignoring everything, just on his own mission to clear his name, and the guilt he must've been feeling.

Brandi felt guilty, too. She gave Sophia the nod that led her to believe the coast was clear, when obviously it wasn't. She also felt responsible, that in their similarities perhaps she should have looked out for Sophia more.

That was stupid and incorrect, but Brandi couldn't shake the feeling. She went to move forward, follow Rick into the unknown, but Daryl pulled her back by her top and shook his head at her.

"Ya follow me, Brand, ya stay behind me" She did, she stood behind him as the doors were opened, pushed inwards, into a bright but dusty room. She stood behind him as he called out to a female walker and stabbed it in the face. She sighed heavily when the three undead inside were finally really gone, and looked around. Dust swirled in the sunlight that came through the high windows, seeming to slow down before some breath of draft dragged the particles into the air again. It was a never ending cycle of spinning, dipping, and slowing, before starting again.

She turned away, deciding she had clearly not had enough sleep. Dancing dust. Whatever next?

"Sophia!" Rick yelled into the now empty room. But nothing came back. Brandi was starting to wonder if anything would. How long did police normally leave it before they stopped looking for a missing person and started looking for a dead body? Days, just days. Three overnights out here and the kid would die of exposure, if she managed to last that long.

She weren't stupid, maybe forced into naïveté by her mom, but Brandi reckoned she'd have the sense to find somewhere to sleep, somewhere covered if not necessarily warm. She couldn't shake the feeling that she and the kid were somehow connected. It bugged her, she knew she weren't responsible, damn it weren't even her kid and her mom should have been watching her, for Christ's sake. She didn't chase her down, that Carol didn't run into the woods, Rick did. And now it was all Rick's fault, at least in Carol's eyes. It was written all over her face.

Unappreciative bitch.

They were outside now, Daryl, Rick and Shane clustered together, Lori with her hands around Carol.

"She must'a heard them bells. She could be close" Rick was starting to sound desperate, and he and Carol went inside.

Brandi hung around, hearing things perhaps she shouldn't, Shane talking about leaving, Lori disbelieving, almost begging him to stay. It made her sad. Sad for Rick, at least. She was angry, though, too. Angry at Shane for treating _her_ like shit just because Lori had dropped him now that her husband had come back to life. Angry at _Lori_ for treating Shane that way. Angry at Shane for expecting better. Angry at Rick for not appearing to see any of it.

She was surprised by how much her views on life had changed in such a short time. Two months ago she wouldn't have given a shit about any of this. Probably would have run the other way at the first chance to do so.

When Lori went in to comfort Carol, who was praying to some God Brandi didn't even want to think about - what God would do this to his children? - She caught up with Shane.

"You should go" Shane turned to her sharply and narrowed his eyes looking her up and down.

"Excuse me?" He said, with a hint of a smile on his lips, like the whole thing was a damn joke.

"Ya should go" she said again "y'ain't doin' nothin' but upsettin' everyone" Brandi shrugged her shoulders and cocked her head as she did so. "upsettin' the apple cart. Ain't no one but the kid gonna miss ya. N he's a young'un, he'll get over ya" Shane let out a laugh,

"And what makes you so sure I wanna go?" It was Brandi's turn to laugh. She ran a hand through her short filthy hair

"Fuckin' ya best friend's wife after lyin' to her..."

"You keep ya voice down"

"He comes back from the dead... Ya screwed, ya don't wanna be a part of this soap opera, do us all a favour, n go" Shane sneered at her, leaned in close and whispered

"Well, maybe I'll stay just to piss you off" Brandi rolled her eyes and leaned away, just as Daryl came crashing down the church steps.

"Brandi-Lynn! Put that pig down. Ya don't know where his been" Shane turned on the spot, and he and Daryl were suddenly face to face, mere inches from being nose to nose.

"What you say?" Daryl snorted

"Ya heard me. Stay the Hell away from my sister," Shane had the audacity to smile, and Brandi was suddenly on high alert.

"I wouldn't touch her with a damn stick, who know what she caught from you and your brother" Brandi shot forward, bolshing her way between them before fists started flying.

"Daryl Dixon! Leave it. He's not worth it." Daryl looked over her shoulder at Shane, who was still grinning like the whole thing was hilarious. "Daryl!" Brandi admonished, slapping his bicep until he finally looked at her "it's ok. Ya can't fight my battles for me. Let's concentrate on what's important." Carol and Lori came out of the church, looking over the hubbub in front of them. Lori looked at Shane very purposefully, then suspiciously at Brandi.

*****

Rick split them into two groups, him Shane and Carl hunting nearby, she and the others following the creek back to the highway.

"This is it! This is the whole plan?" Carol asked, incredulous, as they walked slowly in a long line, all eyes on the forest floor.

"Ya think of somethin' better, Carol, feel free to share it" Brandi said bitterly. She was sick of everyone arguing over who was in charge in here. Though to be completely fair, she couldn't see a single clue Sophia had even been here. She sighed heavily and Daryl elbowed hard "Hey, ow" she hissed, looking up at him. "What the hell?"

"Thought ya had compassion. Christ on a bike, Brand. She's lost her kid" Brandi chewed her lip and got back to looking for something to track. There was literally a whole load of nothing.

*****

The gunshot rang out and echoed all around them. Each of the group stopped in their tracks, and Lori's face fell.

"Was that a gunshot?" She asked daryl and he nodded his head

"Could be they came upon a walker or somethin'" he said quietly, but Lori shook her head

"Don't patronise me, they are not that stupid" Brandi felt her lip curl, she tried to tamper down the classic Dixon knee jerk reaction of overreacting.

"Lori, he didn't mean it that way, Rick n Shane know what they're doin', maybe Carl got excited or somethin'. They're ok. No reason to think otherwise" Unless Shane went nuts and shot them both, or just Rick... or Maybe Rick lost his mind entirely and shot Shane. In front of the kid... Brandi shook her head and turned away from Lori, now resting on a fallen tree. She didn't want her face to betray what she was thinking and feeling, Her brothers always said they could read her like a book, n what she was thinkin' was uncalled for and unfair.

 

 


	9. Chapter 8

It was starting to get dark and they were coming back to the highway once more when the sound of thundering hooves had Brandi spinning 180 degrees on the spot.

"What the Hell?" Daryl asked no one in particular. "That a horse?" No one seemed inclined to answer as a woman appeared swinging a baseball bat atop a huge light brown mare.

"Lori" she asked, looking at the women around her. "Lori Grimes?" Lori stepped forward boldly, even though Daryl scowled at her.

"I'm Lori" she said, no hint of a question in her voice.

"Carl's been shot, I need you to come with me" Lori's hand went to her mouth and the woman shook her head.

"No, nuh uh, no time, Rick sent me, my daddy's lookin' after Carl but we need you, now"

"Nah!" Daryl yelled "ya can't go with this person, we don't know who she is" Lori was half way on the horse's back already, she looked back at Daryl.

"She knows my son, I have to"

"Greene farm," the woman said, focussing on Brandi and giving her directions, "backtrack from the snarl on the highway to Fairburn road, farm's two miles down" Brandi nodded, stunned but taking it all in.

Shot.

One minute they're looking for one missing kid and now Carl's shot.

"How in the hell did he get shot?" Brandi asked those around her as the horse woman flew away with Lori holding on behind her. Daryl shook his head.

"I dunno, but we better get back to Glenn n Tdog, let 'em know what's goin' on."

*****

Glenn had disappeared with Tdog into the dusk and Unknown, and Daryl, Carol and Brandi were alone in the RV.

Brandi shuffled her ass in her seat as she listened to carol crying quietly to herself. It was getting more and more difficult to concentrate on the playing cards in front of her, not least of all because of the growing dark, and Daryl's opinion on the torch she was using 'lightin' up the whole damn world'. She huffed a short exasperated sigh and threw the cards in her hand into the table between them.

"This sucks. Half'a us are gone n Carol's just devastated. Maybe we should go lookin'" Daryl snorted

"In the dark, Brandi? Anyway we can't leave 'er alone like this, she's vulnerable" Brandi rolled her eyes, wondering if her brother would see that in the dark.

"We're all vulnerable, especially with so few." She cast her eyes into the back of the RV and Carol's weeping form. "I can't take this. She sounds just like mama" she clearly saw Daryl's eyes narrow.

"Don't talk about mom. I don't wanna talk about her" Brandi nodded gently.

"Can't run away from it, though. Believe me, bro, I tried, it's still in my head wherever I go. Dad out drinkin'"

"Don't call him that"

"Mama cryin', as if that'd help." She looked out the window next to them. "I tried to escape, I worked so hard to get to college, but it followed me, Dare. Follows me every damn where" she began piling the cards before her into a neat stack.

She guessed that's why Merle acted out, too. Why he joined the army, why he always got himself locked up.

"Ya know what daddy used to call me?" She asked suddenly.

"Stop callin' him daddy. He was ya father at best" Brandi ignored Daryl's quiet outburst.

"He used to call me Lynn. Like I was her. N I decided that he was just lonely 'cause his Lynn died n I was all he had left."

"Stop it" Daryl's voice was a little tight, choked, but Brandi didn't care. Sometimes she liked to talk it out. It reminded her that it really happened.

She knew Daryl hated it. Hated that he was too scared of Will and too young to do anything, and Merle was always at Juvey until he was too old, then he was always in jail. Or the army.

Yeah, Merle liked to act tough but he couldn't hack Will and what he was doing any more than his younger siblings could.

"I used to try n imagine what it was to be normal, cause what we had weren't."

"Was our normal" Brandi snorted air out of her nose and looked back at her twin.

"It was. Don't make it right, though." She looked over at Carol again, remembering her mom curled in bed with her books and her smokes, crying over some argument Will and Merle had had before Will beat the poor kid up.

"She cried, but she never stepped in" Daryl said roughly, rising from his seat and sidestepping away from the table. "She never said nothin'." He stretched and grabbed his gun from the bag underneath the table. "I'm goin' on the roof, have a look n see what I can see." He was gone before Brandi could argue.

She listened to him stomping around up there and thought about Will again.

She called him Daddy to annoy Daryl and thought maybe she should stop. The hate there was obvious. She wondered if she hated Will, chewing her tongue and watching the night out the window.

No. She didn't hate him. He was bad, rotten really, but by being bad he taught her so much about life and about people.

She knew she used sex as some kind of misplaced validation, of course she did. She was no therapist but she knew what her father had done had turned her into what she was.

It also made that crying so unbearable.

She moved her tongue from her teeth and stood, grabbing her bow from the seat beside her and her quiver from the floor beneath.

"I'm goin' out" she called up to Daryl, no longer able to cope with the constant tears. Daryl ran to the edge of the RVs roof and hissed down at her

"No y'ain't, Brandi-Lynn what are ya gonna do in the dark ya stupid girl" Brandi kept walking, waving her torch in the air at Daryl. "Brandi! Hey!" She ignored him, stomping on her way of only to clear her head.

Thinking about Will had made her angry, and there was no way she'd get any sleep anyway. This was a better use of her time than lying and listening to a crying middle aged woman.

*****

Brandi stood with her hands on her hips, scowling at the clear and obvious footprint in the mud, the ground here where she stood damp because it was so close to the creek.

It was recent, but there was only one, and it pointed in the wrong direction considering the few other clues they had come across. It was unmistakably Sophia's, she took the small maglite from her mouth and crouched down, looking for any other sign. It seemed Sophia was heading in the opposite direction of the road, following the creek's flow downhill.

It kind of made sense, hungry thirsty and tired, it was easier to walk down hill, no matter how slight the incline.

The leaves of a bush rustled beside Brandi and she put the maglite in her mouth again, standing and swinging her bow from her back. A walker emerged, it's rotten flesh hanging from its face, it's skull clearly visible through the rips in its skin. She let an arrow fly into its forehead and it crumbles to the ground.

With a shudder she turned the way Sophia had run, and picked up her pace a little.

*****

The sun was just giving the sky a blue green hue on the horizon when Daryl and Carol came across a walker with one of Brandi's arrows poking straight up out of its forehead, it lay on its back as though it was contemplating the sky, it's arms spread either side, it's legs bent under at the knee. Daryl bent and whipped the arrow out, looking at it narrow eyed.

"One of your sister's?" Carol asked him quietly, and Daryl nodded, trying to keep his feelings deep inside where they were safe. Something must have belied them though, as Carol said  
"We'll find them, both of them." It was nice to hear her finally being so positive, but Daryl wasn't so sure.

Brandi-Lynn may seem like the calmer Dixon, but she could fly off the handle with less idea of the consequences than either of her brothers. She wasn't the one who should be out here alone.

"We're gonna have to go to that farm, aren't we?" Carol said, not so much a question. She knew they had to, eventually. Her disheartened acknowledgement just made Daryl more determined to find her daughter am his sister before they had to leave.

"Turned on her heel here," he said, pointing where Brandi-Lynn had left her heel mark, ignoring the question Carol had and hadn't asked. He moved along, crouched down on his haunches. "This print could be Sophia's" he looked up to see Carol nodding, her eyes wet but not sobbing aloud anymore.

"C'mon" he stood and put an arm around her shoulders. "Let's go find ya girl" and mine, he didn't say.


	10. Chapter 9

"Sophia!" Brandi was convinced the girl was close. Tracks had been few and far between, and older than was usually viable, but they'd been there. A footprint, a scrap of blue tshirt caught and trapped in thorns.

She was getting agitated, searching and finding nothing despite following every clue the kid had unknowingly left her. She wasn't the best tracker, and had found it hard to get back in to that frame of mind after spending so long trying to integrate with normal people. Not that that had worked.

For the first time since Daryl had called her on the day she referred to as 'day zero' she thought about college, and how it wasn't what she wanted. How running away from her family hadn't been as simple as leaving them behind. Her memories couldn't be erased. No matter how many drugs she took, regardless how much bourbon she drank, alone in her dorm.

No matter how many nameless faceless men she slept with, coaxing them back to her place with the promise of drugs, alcohol and pussy, it was her father she saw in her bed.

It was daddy beneath her, on top of her, behind her. She'd get hers, Drugs and alcohol making it take too damn long, and she'd roll away, telling them to 'get the fuck outta here'. Then she'd wake up, alone, with barely a memory of the night before, and often a bruise or two for her troubles.

She shook herself off, and the pictures in her head faded like smoke. She took a breath and steadied herself a moment to get her mind back on to the task in hand. Finding the girl. Somehow doing that would make everything ok.

She slung her bow over her shoulder and grabbed her hunting knife, which she put between her teeth. She took a quick look over the tree was standing beneath, and took a breath before swinging herself up into it. A higher vantage would surely help, and if she knew anything about Georgia there was a clearing not far away. Anything out of the ordinary would stick out like a sore thumb, and if all else failed she was pretty sure she wasn't far from that girl on the horse's farm.

The sun was picking out the tops of the trees now below her with a hint of gold. If she had the heart to look she'd have found it beautiful, divine, but she wasn't that way inclined, and she scanned her eyes straight to the house on the horizon, past the clearing she had known would be there, standing huge and alone, surrounded by what could be shrubs, or even brambles.

She guessed the distance at a mile, and she knew she could make it in 10 minutes if nothing tried to take her off course.

She grabbed a branch above her head and stretched her back out, taking in the cool fresh air of morning before the sun rose high enough to heat up the world and make sweat run in her eyes.

There was something in the stillness of morning she'd always loved, since the moment she was old enough to appreciate it she had. Daddy... Will... Still asleep, mama in a drunk coma, Merle off at Juvie and Daryl, more often then not topping and tailing with her, because he was scared to sleep alone.

She took another deep breath before making her way down, descending the tree slowly and carefully, knowing a twisted ankle or worse a broken leg, was the last thing she needed. Something told her if she didn't find that kid today they never would, having an injury slow her down was not on the agenda.

She took a single step, and knew instantly that Daryl had followed, and brought that woman with him.

"Brandi?" She heard him huff out behind her. She rolled her eyes and turned to the sound of his voice. "What the hell are ya doin' out here on ya own?" She shrugged at him. He looked tired, eyes narrow, face drawn. She wondered if she looked the same, if she wore the same exasperated expression. They were twins, but she always fancied she was the looker out of them both.

"Ya know what m doin', I told ya not an hour ago, I'm gonna find that li'l girl." Carol was standing with Daryl, looking mousy and quiet, not as determined as the Dixons. Brandi scratched her head. "Ya c'n help or ya c'n go. What Y'ain't gonna do is stop me" Daryl walked forward and Carol scuttled along behind him like she was tethered with an invisible thread. A puppy on a lead, a sheep following the shepherd.

"Ain't tryin'a stop ya, but ya shouldn't be out here alone." Brandi pulled a face and they moved off.

"Jesus I'm fine, bro'." Daryl huffed at her.  
"We lost Merle, a'ight? Ain't losin' you too. What ya got so far?"

*****

The house was enormous. A stately home out there in the countryside, surrounded by Cherokee roses. Daryl huffed a surprised laugh when he saw them, and when Carol questioned him, he told her the story of the Indian mothers whose tears bore the wild white flowers.

"Ain't no one cryin' for Merle" he told her "maybe these bloomed for ya li'l girl." He picked one, and gave it to Carol, and if she hadn't been so touched Brandi might have been sick at the sight of it.  
Soppy Ol' princess Daryl.

But she smiled as she stood by the front door of the grand building, and listened intently to hear if there was anything inside.

"Sounds empty" she said, as Daryl finally joined her.

"Wait" he said, and banged heavily on the door. "They react to noise, I've noticed that much" he said at Brandi's questioning face. They listened together, standing either side of the jamb. When nothing came back to them Daryl gave Brandi a nod

"A'ight, I'mma go in. Ya wait until I call ya brand', k?" Brandi nodded at him. She had a feeling she couldn't find the name for. When it suddenly hit her that it was hope. Not something she'd felt in a long while, if ever. She nodded again.

"Ok. Be careful." And she stood back as Daryl tried the door and found it unlocked.

Brandi stood back with Carol, who watched the outside of the house anxiously.

"What ya did, that took real guts" Carol looked at Brandi like she didn't understand. Brandi nodded at her. "Ed" she said. "I know what he was doin' to ya. Everyone did. N I know how you loved him, how it must'a taken everythin' ya had to put him down like that." She paused thoughtfully. "My daddy? He used to come into my room late at night" Carol gasped and Brandi shook her head. "Ya sweet Carol, but don't act surprised. Lookit me, got daddy issues written across me forehead" Brandi-Lynn laughed gently. "But I don't think I could'a buried a pick axe in his head with as little hesitation as you did. Ya got balls'a size'a Texas, Carol. Don't ya let anyone tell ya different" Carol raised her chin a little and looked Brandi in the eye, and Brandi could see it there, her strength was swimming just under the surface.

"Thank you" she said quietly. "And thank you for this. No one but you and Daryl are out here right now. I really appreciate it." Brandi was about to answer her when Daryl appeared in front of them.

"C'mon" he said, eyeing Brandi as though he'd overheard the whole thing. "It's dark, lotsa hidin' places. I need more eyes in there."

It was dingy, and cold, in that house. They entered into a dining room and it stunk of dust and disuse.

"We gonna sweep the whole place or are we gonna search each room?" Brandi asked, making Daryl in charge with the simple question. Carol hovered annoying behind them, knife held in front of her in both hands far to stiffly for it to be of any use. Daryl nodded at a cupboard in the corner as he lifted an empty sardine can from the top of an overflowing trash can.

"Check room by room" he said. "Less likely to miss somethin'" Brandi nodded and headed for the larder cupboard, taking an arrow from her quiver, planning to use it as a knife if anything jumped out at her. She reached for the knob on one of the doors, holding her breath without realising it. She squeezed her eyes closed and grasped the knob, opening her eyes and swinging the door open together.

A gasp sounded behind her, and she stared down in to the face of the little girl who she'd last seen under a car on the highway.

"Sophia?" Carol's voice. In slow motion she shoved Brandi out of the way and grabbed Sophia up in her arms. Brandi turned to see her brother coming into the room. On his face a wide grin, but they didn't get it, they hadn't realised.  
Sophia was alive.

Now, Brandi had nothing.

*****

They decided to rest up in the grand house for a while, get Sophia some proper food. The kid was needy, worried, didn't want her mother out of her sight, and eventually the pair curled up asleep together.

"Ya did good, Brand'" Daryl's rough and quiet voice cut through her thoughts. She gave him a closed lip smile.

"Thanks. Now what?" Daryl didn't hesitate in his answer.

"We go to that farm, can't be more'n half a mile now, find th'others" he shrugged, but didn't continue. Brandi breathed a heavy sigh. Back to the others, Shane and his misplaced anger, Lori and Rick playing happy families. She hoped Carl was alright, she wondered if they'd have heard if he wasn't.


	11. Chapter 10

Daryl drove Dale's old RV, Brandi sitting beside him like his damned lover, Carol and Sophia lounging sleepily in the back. Brandi looked out through the glass of the windshield cautiously as they turned down the dusty farm track with 'Greene' written on the sign at the entrance. She wasn't sure what she was looking for, carnage, maybe, signs that the dead had come and ripped everyone to shreds. She didn't know why she was so pessimistic, maybe because things had suddenly taken a turn for the good, and that surely couldn't last. 

The group had set up a little camp among some trees not too far from the big old farm house, but not too close either, Brandi noted. It was as if they were only just welcome due to their emergency, but weren't expected to stay, leaving the place looking untidy.

"Reckon that's them." Daryl grunted beside her, turning the RV onto the grass to pull up nice and close. The day was glorious, and the group were already milling around making themselves useful. As Brandi saw Lori and Rick coming out of the farm house she launched herself from her seat and out the RV to greet them. She had to know about Carl, she had to tell them about Sophia. 

"Brandi?" Lori questioned as she ran forward almost into them both. Rick looked like Hell, pale and drawn like his world had crashed around his feet, razed to nothing in flames.

"Carl?" Brandi asked, breathless as the door of the RV squeaked opened again behind her "How is he? Is he..?" She looked between them both, blue eyes wide, and Lori's mouth fell open as she looked over Brandi's shoulder, ignored her questions and ran forward to Carol and Sophia, Daryl standing like a spare part behind them. She turned back to Rick, hoping for good news, expecting bad from the state of him. 

"He'll be OK" Rick said "He needed blood, and Shane had to get equipment with a man named Otis, Otis didn't make it back, but Shane, he did it, he saved my boy." The look in Rick's eyes, hope, love, gratitude, was somewhat overshadowed when he realised what Lori had seen behind Brandi, and he fell forward on stiffened legs to Carol and Sophia, who were both a little overwhelmed at the attention they received. It was then the Brandi saw horse girl and the Asian kid, Glenn, heading off on horseback down the dusty track she and Daryl had driven to get there.

Everything was different, changed, and she felt like she was no longer part of the wider story there on the farm, like the group had closed in tighter together to fill in the gaps left by the twins and Carol and her daughter. Brandi frowned and turned to speak to Daryl, coming instead face to face with Shane, and a sharp gasp escaped her. 

Shane smiled, a cunning half sneer, though the mirth didn't reach his eyes.

"That the effect I have on you, huh?" Brandi took a step back from him, uncomfortable with the close proximity, and lifted her chin a little. She hated being uncomposed in the face of anyone, and Shane especially would revel in the fact he had managed to creep up on her.

"Ya still here, then" she said, not looking at him, not wanting him to think he affected her in any way, hoping she sounded disinterested. Shane's sneer deepened, encompassing his face into an evil parody of itself. He took a step forward.

"Didn't ya hear? I saved Carl's life, I ain't going anywhere." Brandi felt her own eyes narrow, refusing to feel intimidated by Shane's closeness. She held her chin up a little so she could look down at him, her own effort to subdue. It wasn't working. And those big brown eyes of his, glaring into her very soul, so it seemed.

He looked her up and down painstakingly slowly, the tip of his tongue poking out of his mouth. As his eyes rested on hers again his face cracked into a wide grin, and he leant forward a little as if to exclude all others from their conversation.

"I'm running a gun training programme, just for those that don't know what they're doing." He shrugged his shoulders, tossed his head lightly to one side. "Thought maybe you might wanna come along."

"Ain't no Dixon needs no gun trainin'." Daryl's rough voice to the rescue. Shane stood to one side and Daryl appeared as if by some divine magic. Brandi smiled at him gratefully, but his face was hard as he glared at Shane. "Ya don't think ya've done 'nuff?"

"Hey man," Shane flung his hands up, palms out, an insincere gesture of innocence. "I was offering the extra curricular training" Daryl snorted.

"I bet ya was. I won't tell ya 'gain, Pig, leave Brandi alone." Shane straightened up his stance as Daryl called him a pig for the hundredth time, he never spoke to Rick that way, like he had more respect for him, or at least some.

"Hey, ok, maybe it'd be good for me" Brandi cut in before it could come to blows between Daryl and Shane. "Alright? I'll go" she turned to her twin, his eyes were grim and dark.

"I know what ya doin'" he huffed at her, starting to lead away from the group camp and to a place he'd decided they'd be better off, away from the people, singling them out and discriminating themselves before they had even started on the farm. Brandi didn't like it, but Daryl was already stewing and if she said anything she knew he'd just about bite her head off.

"Ain't doin' nothin'" she said sullenly instead. "Jus' tryin'a get along with people." Daryl started setting them up, next to an old chimney stack left over from some long forgotten building. Brandi tried to articulate what she was thinking. No easy feat for a Dixon by any length, but this was Daryl. Her other half.  "This could be us for sometime," she spread her arms to take in the whole of the farm. "This could be it, Daryl. Ya wanna live the rest'a forever at loggerheads with Shane? Go right 'head n see if I care. But don't make that about me, ya beef with him is with him, k?" He looked up at her, kneeling down and fussing with the half made up tent as he was. She looked down feeling hopeless.

With finding Sophia she'd lost her reason to go on, even if it was just for a moment she had something worth bothering with, and she wanted a reason again. She tried to convey that in her eyes, with her mind. Daryl could read her like a book, always had anyway, but they'd been apart so long before Day Zero. Maybe they'd lost the bond. 

"Look," she started, feeling like she was losing the battle "Daryl, I already feel Like we're outsiders here," Daryl snorted but she continued regardless "and then we din't come runnin' instantly when everyone else did. I feel like we've lost out on bondin' time with these people" Daryl snorted softly again and she stopped, folding her arms and rolling her eyes. 

"Bondin' time? What are we, fuckin' buddies now? Ya feel too much, Brand'. These people were jus' there when we needed 'em." Brandi gasped loudly, shocked and disgusted. 

"Y'know, I thought y'were one'a  the good guys," her eyes welled up and she blinked away the tears that threatened. "I thought ya gave a shit 'bout people. 'Bout me. Maybe not, maybe I was wrong. Book learnin's all well n good but I guess a got a bit'a life learnin' to do, huh?" She didn't wait for an answer, she turned and began walking back down the mound they'd ascended to the others, to the camp the whole group shared. 

Stupid Daryl and his ridiculous need to please Merle even though he weren't there! She cursed their older brother in her head. Daryl was soft and sweet and kind. She knew it as well as she knew her name was Brandi-Lynn, but Merle had got into his head and turned him into an ass. 

She ran her hands through her hair and huffed a sigh, stopping a moment to regain some sort of composure. No, she didn't give a shit what people thought, for the most part, and partitioning themselves off was fine when safety lie that way, but the world had changed and dammit now safety was in numbers, groups, and they had one just a few hundred feet away. 

She began walking again, Shane popping into her head. She wondered how things were with him and Rick and Lori, had Lori and Rick been pulled together or pulled apart by Carl's unfortunate accident? 

"Brandi-Lynn!" The high pitched squeal pulled her instantly to the here and now, and Sophia was running full pelt towards her, arms outstretched and a stupid grin on her face.

The little girl had changed her clothes, washed her face, and she seemed none the worse for her ordeal. She crashed into Brandi, who emitted a little winded noise as she did so.

"Hey, Soph', wow that was quite a crash." Sophia pulled away, smiling up at her saviour, Brandi thought the girl looked more mature, even if she was grinning like a mad woman. She had to strain herself not to push the girl away, after all Brandi had found her, but it was weird to be held in such high regard.

"Will you join us for lunch?" Brandi looked at Carol, wondered a moment about her brother, but nodded.

"Yeah, ya know what, Carol, that'd be great. Thanks" Carol asked the question with a simple raising of her brows and Brandi shrugged. "Ugh, Ya wanna try him, go right ahead, but I can't promise he'll come" Carol narrowed her eyes and gave a single firm nod before heading up the hill to find the other twin, leaving Brandi with her daughter.


	12. Chapter 11

Over the rest of the day and the following night Brandi made some swift observations.

Shane was pissed. Sure Carl was alive, and Hell, he might have even been out of bed the following morning, but he was just pissed about everything and at everyone.

Sophia was a needy little kid, but she was hard to resist. Brandi still felt that bond with her she had from the start of her disappearance, so she let the girl sit close to her through lunch and through dinner. Carol resented it, hard, it was written all over her face and in the clipped way she spoke to Brandi and the girl. Brandi wondered at it at first, she'd found her daughter, for god's sake, but it dissipated. she wanted her kid to want her was all. 

Still, none of that explained what happened in the morning.

Lori and Rick peeled off to go to the house early in the evening, which explained a lot for Brandi, a hell of a lot. she caught Shane's eye as they went and he shrugged, trying to convey that he didn't care wither way, but the thing with Shane was, he was a very bad liar.

She spent the night with Daryl, just like old times. She bedded down in the tent next to him, far away from the prying eyes of the group, lying on her back and staring at the polyester ceiling above them.

"Makes a change from the chipped paint'a my dorm" she said conversationally, rolling onto her side and resting her head on her hand so she could look at her brother. "n our old room at home." She smiled, a memory hitting her suddenly. Daryl had crawled into her bed because he was too scared to sleep alone. she went to speak, but he'd read her mind in that annoying way he could. Twin Thing. It was normal for them, and she was pleased they still had it after all the time she had been away.

"I weren't scared, Brand'" His voice was quiet, a calm in the darkness. "I know ya thought ya was protectin' me but," He sighed and she wanted him to continue, but she didn't interrupt. Of course she was protecting him! He was scared of the dark and climbed in with her, topping and tailing and aiming farts at her face for comic relief. " _I_ was protectin' _you_ , Brandi-Lynn." Brandi snorted at him, turning onto her back once more.

"Yeah, fartin' in my face kept me alive." She rolled her eyes, having thought they were connecting again, finally.

"Don't ya get it?" His voice was still quiet, still low, but rougher, harsher. What was he so angry about? Brandi huffed a puff of air in his direction. "Ya think we di'n't know what Will was doin'? Merle was a fuckin' coward n wouln't do nothin', but I always knew if I got in ya bed, Will wouln't bother." Daryl turned on his back, too, with a grunt of frustration, and they lay side by side for a while, staring at the ceiling of the tent, listening to the cows lowing in the distant fields.

Silence between them never became uncomfortable. Brandi was marveling at that fact when she reached out and grabbed Daryl's hand.

"Thank you" she whispered in to the darkness, feeling his hand clasp hers tightly. "Not just for da... for Will. For everythin'."

* * *

She woke with a start in the morning. It was early, barely light, and Daryl still had hold of her hand. She peeled away from him wondering what had woke her when the scream came again. This time Daryl woke up, sitting bolt upright without hesitation.

"Brandi! Daryl!" It was getting closer.

"Sophia?" Brandi burst out of her sleeping bag and yanked the zips on the tent's door hard enough to bend the pull tags. "Sophia?!" Louder now, Brandi's voice demanding a reason for so much noise at that God forsaken hour.

"It's Mom!" Sophia was breathless, distraught "She's gone," Brandi put her hands on the kid's shoulders, they were shaking. 

"Slow down, Sophia, big deep breath," 

"I woke up and she weren't there, you gotta find her, like you did me, you got to!" Daryl emerged from their tent and Sophia looked between them with her big, hazel, eyes. "Please?!" She elongated the last word to several syllables, and Brandi's heart about broke. Her mama was all she had, they had to do something.

"OK, Kid, c'mon. Where'd ya last see her?" Daryl took the kid by the arm, leading her away before turning back to Brandi-Lynn. "Go to the house, let Rick know what's goin' on." Brandi went to speak, but Daryl's stern set face insisted she do as he asked, and so she headed towards the big white house as he headed toward the group camp.

The door was open, and the screen banged into her as she pushed her way through.

"Hey, hello?"

"What is going on out there? Who are you?" An older man approached her, all white hair and braces. She frowned a little, she was a stranger to him, though he must have known she was with the group he'd already semi accepted.

"Brandi-Lynn Dixon, I need Rick, Carol's gone missin' n now ain't no time to go for a wander on ya own, y'know?" The white haired dude looked her up and down, his eyes resting on her hip and the gun she was wearing. Rick and Lori both appeared behind the man looking sleep addled. 

"Hershel, Brandi?" Rick seemed confused, Brandi knew they didn't have time to waste.

"Carol's gone walkabout, we need ya." She was already turning for the door before she finished, hearing the white haired farmer stop Rick, mentioning guns. She turned back to the door, throwing her arms wide to show he was wasting time when Rick finally appeared.

"We need him on side" Rick explained. "Tell me what's going on here"

"Dare!" Brandi yelled as they approached the camp, everyone looked over at her and Rick, Lori trailing them with the brunette who had ridden into their lives on a red horse. Brandi ignored their eyes, grabbed Sophia as she ran to her side without thinking about it, pulling her close with an arm wrapped around the younger girl's shoulders.

Daryl emerged from the RV, where Sophia and Carol were staying, his face was grim, set into a frown.

"Any clue?" She asked him, as Rick called out,

"Talk to me Daryl, we got a missing woman now?" Daryl nodded his head, and spoke to Brandi-Lynn, uncomfortable with the authority Rick represented, even though he respected him more than most of the people around him.

"Bed's cold, but that don't mean nothin'" he paused, looked at the girl, then, finally, at Rick. "Looks like she packed a bag, ain't like she jus' ducked out for a piss." He shrugged his shoulders as he spoke, like he didn't get it, like he'd said everything he needed to.

Brandi turned to those behind her, Rick's face a deep frown, Lori with her hands on hips, face turned to the sky.

"Why?" Rick asked, "you just found her daughter, why would she go?" Brandi shrugged and shook her head.

"Ain't gonna find out if we stand here talkin' 'bout it all mornin'" she said, turning and kneeling in front of Sophia. "We need to find ya mama, but I think ya should stay here in case she comes back, k? She'll wanna see your purty face first."

"No" Sophia grabbed one of Brandi's hands in both of hers "you can't leave me." Brandi stood up and pulled her hand away.

"I have to, Sophia, we gotta get ya mom back." She looked around at the others for some sort of help, but none was forth coming. The brunette from the big house was head to head with Rick at the hood of the RV, talking about survey maps

"I got 'em out when I thought we had to find the little girl." Brandi tuned them out, looking at the other faces. Shane's loomed, as it always did when she least needed arrogance and douchebaggery.

"She packed a bag and left, man. Tells me she wanted to stay gone." He rubbed a hand over his newly shaven head and down his neck. Brandi hadn't noticed his new look before, she frowned at him, unsure of it was attractive or not.

She shook her head as if to clear it.

"Her daughter's here, we got it good here. Why'd she wanna leave?" She ran her hands through her short sandy locks and laughed humourlessly, "somethin' ain't right."

"I dunno, Brandi," his voice was harsh, accusatory "maybe she wasn't used to havin' it so good, maybe she preferred it when Ed was alive, beatin' the shit out of her."

"Hey!" Lori cut him off, her voice a shocked loud whisper, "don't talk like that in front of her child!" Shane shook his head like he couldn't believe a thing he was hearing.

"Oh you're gonna start on me now, huh? You of all people?" Brandi buried her hands in her hair again. Daryl had joined in with Rick and the brunette, looking over survey maps.

She couldn't listen to any more, everyone digging at each other while Carol moved farther away from them, her trail getting colder by the second. She dropped her hands and looked again for help, then Rick was walking over and he gave everyone jobs to do so no one would be hanging around feeling useless. 

"Daryl, Brandi, you go searching, she can't have got far. Shane, we'll go ahead with gun training for those who want it, there's no point all of us running all over any tracks these guys find." Shane shook his head, rolled his eyes, looking like he might punch someone or something. 

"splittin' us up again? Think that's wise?" His tone said he didn't think it was, but Rick just eyeballed Shane as Daryl ran his arm along Brandi's shoulders until she was in a loose headlock, and turned her away.

"C'mon sis, leave the townies to be townies n the pigs to be pigs. I'mma find that girls mama, then they'll see" what they were supposed to be seeing, Brandi sure as hell didn't know, but she went with it. Drama wasn't something she cared too much for, anyhow. 

Though she couldn't help but think Shane was right. She packed a bag. 

Carol had run away.


	13. Chapter 12

"D'ya think Merle's dead?" They'd been walking a twisted route through the trees, Daryl wanting to get up high, see things clearer with some elevation. Brandi was keeping an eye on the ground for obvious tracks, there weren't even the scuffed marks of walkers, it was creepy how untouched everything was.

She hadn't thought of Merle much, never did. In truth he was always 'away' in the army, at Juvey, then she was at college.

"I don't. C'mon Brandi it's Merle, he's alive n kickin' out there somewhere." Brandi wasn't so sure.

"Good job he lost a hand n not a leg, then." She smirked to herself, but earned an elbow in the ribs from her twin. "Ow!" Daryl huffed a short laugh.

"Jesus, college made ya weak as a kitten, I barely touched ya." He eyed her sidelong, and she flipped him off, readjusting her bow with her free hand. The day was getting to that good ol' Georgia sweatiness, and the droplets running down her back were making her itch.

"He's out there" Daryl stopped and looked around him as he spoke, as if Merle could even be watching. "Causin' a ruckus for someone who ain't us for once. He's fine, Brand, I know it." Brandi frowned thoughtfully and started walking again, they were up pretty high by that point, the trees were taller, thinner, the air was clean. She turned back to Daryl and was about to tell him to hurry the fuck up and stop being a damn pussy over Merle, when her foot caught in a vine and she fell, smacking her head and knocking herself out.

* * *

"Brandi!" Daryl surged forward and reached out in something akin to slow motion as his sister tumbled backwards over herself and over the edge of the ridge. He almost snagged her clothes, the fabric of the flannel shirt tied around her waist brushing his fingers lightly before the world sped up again, and she was gone.

She was silent as she fell. Thumps and thuds of her hitting the ground, the tinkling of dislodged dirt and pebbles... but Brandi was out cold and didn't make a sound.  
He followed her down. He sat on his haunches at the edge of the ridge and slid down to the bottom that way.

She was alive, she'd landed at the water's edge, and directly onto an arrow that had dislodged from her quiver as she fell, but she was breathing, and hopefully hadn't punctured anything vital. Daryl tore off his sleeve without thinking too much about it and attempted to bind Brandi's wound, but Merle's voice in his head told him to pull out the arrow.

"Bind it better that way, dipshit." He rolled his eyes and tried it, Brandi grumbled in her comatose state but didn't wake. Daryl wondered if that was for the better, last thing he needed was his twin screaming in pain and bringing danger their way.

With her waist bound up, the jagged wound in her side protected from the filth of the ground she lay on, he decided to fetch water, she'd be thirsty when she woke up, and after causing this mess it was the least he could do.

He looked around himself first, checking there was nothing that could do either of them any harm.

* * *

 

She came to in a shit load of pain, her head pounding, wet all down her legs, ass and back. She was on the banks of a lake, water lapping at her boots.

"Wha...?" She managed, trying to sit up, but failing, realising she'd been tied around the waist. She frowned and pulled at the fabric, a sleeve, wrapping her up around a jagged wound in her side.

"Yo, Brandi, the fuck's wrong with ya? Sleepin' on the job, huh?"

"Merle?" She croaked out, unable to see clearly with her head pounding and blurring her vision. "Ya come back from the dead n ya gonna pick at my restin'?" She tried to laugh, but she coughed instead and it ripped a pain through her waist where the jagged hole was.

"Restin'? Ya kiddin' me baby sister? Ya damn near killt yaself fallin' down the bank there," Brandi noticed Merle had both hands, realised he was an apparition, and decided to ignore him.

Her eyes drifted closed, she called him an ass, and he poked her in the side with his toes.

"Ow, quit it Merle."

"College made ya weak, c'mon girly, get y'ass up n look for that damned twin'a yours, he ain't gon' make it out here alone. I tried to make him a man, ya know? Din't work none, did it?" He pealed off a hoarse laugh and Brandi squinted away from it as the sound splintered through her head.

"He's a good kid, ya leave him alone, y'hear?" That hoarse laugh again, Brandi tried to move away from it, from Merle, but something was snagging on her boots.

"Ain't nothin' but a soppy sack'a shit, he ain't lookin' for Merle no more, none ya are, but ya couldn't help but chase after that damn middle aged pussy, huh? Never took you for a rug muncher, li'l sis, but whatever floats ya boat my girl, whatever floats..."

"Brandi!" She turned slightly and saw Daryl coming towards her, crossbow wielded as he took a shot directly at her. She yelped and tried to curl into a ball, when the snagging at her feet stopped, very suddenly almost the instant she heard his bow string.

"Brandi?!" He yelled again, much closer and too loud for her banging head to cope. "Oh hell, oh no" he was whispering down by her feet. She tried to see what he was fussing at, and wondering where Merle had gone, when he jumped up and started kicking at something.

"Dirty, stinkin' asshole sonnova bitch!"

"Daryl?" She called him, still having no clue as to what was happening. He looked up at her, ran to kneel by her side.

"Did he bite ya, Brand? Are ya bit?" He asked breathlessly, face the epitome of worry.

"Who, Merle?" His face screwed into a frown.

"What? Nah. The geek, the walker, did ya get bit?" Things started coming together again as Brandi managed to sit up, a walker lay on the floor by her feet, Daryl's bolt sticking straight upright from its eye.

"The hell's goin' on?" She asked quietly, too stunned to yell anymore.

"Are ya bit!?" He almost screamed at her. She hook her head, pushed him away from her weakly as he fussed.

"I ain't, Dare, a'ight? Now why the fuck am I on the ground here?" Thankfully he stopped messing around checking her over. He sat back on his haunches, hands dangling between his knees.

"Ya fell down into the quarry." He looked up the steep stony bank which apparently she'd rolled over. "Landed on a damned arra, had to pull it out, n ya wouln't wake up, I jus' went for a minute to get some water, I'm sorry Brand" Brandi shook her head absently at him. What happened to her didn't matter, she was alive, and almost ok, that's what counted in the grand scheme of flesh eating cannibal monsters.

She sighed and put a hand on his bicep.

"Don't stress, Daryl, I'm good."

"Yeah, but"

"But nothin'."

"I think ya need stitches, maybe we go back for the day." Daryl stood up and held his hand down to pull her up, she took the help, her side was a white hot poker stabbing her over and over. Daryl put an arm around her waist and she leaned on him gratefully.

"Were ya talkin' to Merle?" Daryl's voice held a tinge of humour, but Brandi wasn't about to let him have all the fun.

"Yeah, we was talkin' 'bout ya chupacabra." She smiled to herself, earning an unamused grunt from her brother.

"I know what I saw."

"Uh huh, n I heard ya was high as a fuckin' kite that day too," Brandi laughed and it hurt her side, but she did it again anyway, because she knew the pain was real. It connected her to Daryl and to this cruel walker filled world, and distanced her from the apparition she'd seen of Merle. It scared her that she could be so removed from reality.

"I weren't even drunk." She whispered with an absent shake of her head. Daryl eyed her sideways, eyes tight, but he said nothing, just hitched her up a little under his arm, geeing her on to get back to the farm.

He didn't mention the rag doll he'd found, a little battered and soaked through, he didn't mention the fear in his heart as she stumbled back over the steep bank, rolling twice in utter silence before skidding to the bottom.  
He knew she knew how much he cared and how sorry he was.

* * *

 

"I had no idea you people would be going through the antibiotics so quickly" Brandi drew in a sharp breath as Hershel stitched her up. Daryl had offered her a hand to hold and she about punched him for his efforts.

"I ain't no damn pussy." She'd grunted, and she was sure the farmer, Hershel, had stabbed her with the needle on purpose as he asked her not to curse.

"Not very ladylike, young lady." He admonished, much to Daryl's amusement. She rolled her eyes and mumbled an apology.

"Where'd you find the doll?" Rick asked Daryl, both of them were surrounding the bed Brandi was on getting her treatment.

"Up here" Daryl pointed at the map stretched out on the bed, and Brandi tuned them out. She hadn't noticed the doll. She wanted to check if Sophia remembered having it before they jumped to conclusions that Carol had taken it with her. Ask Sophia if she'd been near the water, too.

When everyone left she heard Shane and Lori talking outside her bedroom. She wondered why the fuck those two had to chat around her so often, always in her peripheral vision.

"Me and my son are no longer your problem." Lori shot Shane down sharply, and Brandi sighed to herself.

Shane was a just a big lump of misplaced emotion. She knew he didn't love Lori, Brandi knew without a doubt, why sleep with her if he did? To hurt Lori? No, he was out to hurt himself for what he did to his best friend and his family. Brandi was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.  
Another sigh escaped her. No matter the soap opera in the hallway the fact remained that Shane didn't want to continue looking for Carol, he wanted to stop now as it was too dangerous, and she'd left of her own volition.

Brandi chewed her tongue. She couldn't make sense of it. Why would you leave the daughter you'd been so desperate to find? Brandi frowned and pushed the cover back off her legs as though she might leave the room, but Lori flew in through the door as she did so,

"No, no, Brandi, you need to rest" Lori wiped her face hurriedly and pulled the coverlet back over Brandi.

"Lori, please."

"No, come on, you're wounded," Lori finally looked Brandi in the eye. "Don't give me that look, I'm not trying to be your mama, I just..." she paused and ran her skinny hands through her hair "I just need a break from sitting and just staring at Carl..." she stopped again. Brandi chewed her tongue, and waited. Lori had something to say, Brandi was willing to let her vent if that's what she needed.

She never liked the woman, she was a bad mother, though not as bad as Lynn Dixon, and she was cruel and cold when Rick arrived alive, but still, people had to stick together.

Daryl might like to be alone, keep himself to himself, but Brandi knew different.

"I don't know what to do Brandi, Carl's not waking up, Hershel says he's stable... Ricks trying to lead with some sense of diplomacy and Shane keeps flying off the handle and upsetting everyone." She buried her hands in her hair, sitting at the end of the bed and finally stopping her fussing.

"Why're ya tellin' me this, Lori?" Brandi asked her, and Lori shrugged with a humourless smile.

"I honestly don't know." She looked completely defeated. "I never really had, a girlfriend, y'know?" Brandi pushed herself upright further,

"We ain't girlfriends" she spat at the brunette "I don't mind ya ventin' but I ain't 'bout to braid ya hair or nothin'" Lori rolled her eyes

"Grow up, Brandi"

"Nah, ya don't get to talk to me like that Lori. I know what y'are, I know what ya did, n I sure as hell've had 'nuff'a watchin' ya little drama unfold. Now, ya wanna vent, ya go right ahead, I won't tell no one nothin' cause it ain't my damn business, but if Daryl thinks I'm hidin' somethin', he'll get it outta me, cause he's my twin, he knows me better than I do." Brandi took a breath as a stitch like burn lit in her side. "Go ahead, ya wanna talk, so talk. Ya want advice, I can guarantee ya won't like it."

"I'm Pregnant" Lori burst before Brandi had finished, cutting her off. The woman was staring into the distance, fiddling with her wedding ring and rest her free hand on her stomach.

Brandi just stared at her, unable to articulate just how fucking dumb Lori must be to get knocked up.


	14. Chapter 13

Brandi was out of bed the following day, ordered by Hershel to rest and not planning to do so for even a second. Carol was still missing, Sophia was more clingy, Glenn was acting weird even for his own nervous self, and Lori was avoiding her like the plague. She'd fucked up by revealing her issues to Brandi, who wasn't exactly about to throw a pity party.

"Brandi-Lynn!" She was just coming down the porch steps, Sophia already attached, desperately, like a limpet, to her side, and Daryl was on her in an instant, his voice a low, rough, drawl. "Ya can't be searchin' for no one today, doc's orders." Brandi ran her hands through her short sandy hair and turned her face up to the sun.

"Lemme guess, ya've somethin' in mind?" She faced her brother and cocked an eyebrow at him. He further narrowed his already suspicious gaze and knelt down in front of the Peletier girl.

"I'mma find ya mama, kid, y'hear me?" Brandi felt a small smile spread on her face. Daryl really was the sweet one, Merle would have left Carol to her own devices, much like Shane wanted to, and she herself just wanted the whole mess to be over with, but Daryl was putting aside his personal shit regarding family to ensure someone else wouldn't suffer the same fate the Dixon's had. 

"She won't'a left for no reason, n I ain't gonna let ya grow up without her, k?" Brandi marvelled again at how alike Merle and Shane really were as Daryl babbled uncharacteristically at the kid.

Both loud and brash, both egotistical, both with more brawn than brain, relying more on scaring than making sense. She sighed and caught Daryl now looking at her, standing before her where he was on his knees last she looked. She shook her head absently, clearing it. She thought she had daddy issues, not big brother issues.

"You should stop" Sophia said beside her, and Brandi looked down at her stunned.

"'S'cuse me?" She asked.

"Looking for my mom. Shane's right. She packed a bag and left on purpose." Sophia's dry eyes were a cause for concern for Brandi. The most horrifying part of the whole conversation were those big clear hazel eyes as dry as if she was talking of the weather.

"You nearly died, Brandi, I can't lose you too." Brandi opened and closed her mouth noiselessly, completely stuck for a response. She looked at Daryl for help,

"Well," he thought for a moment. "I'mma speak to Rick, see if I can't get some help today n Brandi c'n stay, a'ight?" Sophia looked between the two adults before nodding enthusiastically. Brandi tapped her arm gently and told her to run and get some breakfast in camp, before Shane and Glenn scoffed the lot.

"What the fuck?" She turned to Daryl when the kid was out of earshot. Daryl shrugged and shifted his crossbow on his shoulder.

"Kids b'n through a lot, y'know what it's like." Brandi folded her arms under her chest.

"I do? That was helluva adult decision for a kid'a twelve." She watched as Sophia sat by the camp fire and Lori dished her up some food. "She's so... ok." She sighed and scratched her forehead with her thumb. "Somethin' ain't right." Daryl nodded.

"Ya tellin' me, kid's b'n forced to grow up fast, that's all. Ya gonna eat, too? Gotta keep ya strength up." Brandi nodded, shrugged, and turned her palms up all at once.

"I gotta help" she said like she'd made a decision. "I can't sit around here n not do nothin'."

"Nah" Daryl answered "ya c'n sit 'round here gettin' better. Ya wanna help? Help yaself. I can't lose ya either, baby sister" he looked around him and nodded backwards towards the group. "I'mma tell Rick to lemme take Shane." Brandi focussed back on her brother with her eyebrows raised. "I don't think ya should be consortin' with him, Brand, n I wanna feel him out a little more." Brandi brayed a harsh laugh.

"Consortin'? Christ,"

"Yeah" Daryl cut her off and his face was so serious that Brandi's smile dropped. "Y'ever notice how he's runnin' 'round with someone else's gun? That's otis' by my reckonin'. What did he do? Give Shane his firearm convenien'ly before bein' swarmed?" Brandi peered over Daryl's shoulder at the man in question. She frowned.

"Ya think... " she paused and shook her head. "nah, he's volatile but he ain't no murderer" Daryl scoffed quietly.

"To save Carl, get in with Lori? I think so. I just wanna chat, feel him out." Brandi shrugged.

"Do what ya will, I don't give a shit. If he's so bad, be careful, a'ight?" She didn't want to believe it. She couldn't think that of anyone, despite everything she'd seen in her life, she didn't want to assume the worst. Daryl nodded, chewing his bottom lip thoughtfully, and left Brandi alone on the porch steps without another word, not heading for the rest of the group, but to their own camp for two up on the mound in the ruins left from an old building.

*****

"Shane's made his thoughts clear on Carol, and I need him here to run the gun training." Rick looked Daryl in the eye, making Daryl slightly uncomfortable. Apart from Brandi he wasn't used to be spoken to, more spoken at, "you don't owe us anything," the policeman continued. "The trail must be getting cold." Daryl shook his head.

"What do we tell Sophia?" Rick didn't answer, didn't have to. There was no question that Daryl would keep looking.

"You don't have to go alone" Rick called as Daryl walked away, and he threw a hand up in the air.  
"Better alone." He called back, ending the conversation.

*****

"You didn't go with Daryl?" Shane was sitting at a picnic table cleaning his gun when Brandi came across him. That was a lie, she was out looking for him. He didn't look up as he answered.

"Didn't know he wanted me to. Why didn't you go?" Brandi shrugged even though Shane wasn't looking.

"Doctor's orders, I gotta rest" she picked up another of the hand guns and began pulling it apart. Shane stopped and watched her hands running expertly over the 9mm she'd picked up.

"Running around with that bow on ya back, didn't have you down as a gun girl." Brandi smiled without looking up, putting the gun back together again.

"There's a lot ya don't know." She checked the safety and lay the gun on the table between them, finally looking up and meeting Shane's eyes.

"Ya think I wanna?" He smirked at her and leaned forward a bit. "Ya think I give a shit?" Brandi nodded without speaking. She went to grab another handgun but Shane's hand shot out and she ended up grabbing that instead. Their eyes met, and he smirked again.

"You should come gun training with me. Somewhere quiet, far out..." Her eyebrows shot up into her hairline, and Shane's big brown puppy eyes widened as he feigned complete surprise at her interpretation. "Woah there girl, I was not suggesting anything at all, I'm just looking out for the safety of the group." He shrugged his not inconsiderable shoulders and flashed her his pearly whites. "'Less you got an idea ya wanna share?" Brandi thought about that, truly mulled it over. Part of her still wanted Shane in a very feral way, part of her still wanted to teach Lori a lesson, though the original reason why the stepford wife aggravated her so much was now buried under a plethora of multiplying cells.

And even though a lot had changed, she was still, and always would be, Brandi-Lynn Dixon, and Brandi-Lynn got what she wanted, when she wanted. She smiled at Shane, eye brow still perched high into her forehead.

"Yeah, maybe I do." Shane smiled with one side of his mouth and gave Brandi a nod.

"Tell ya what, we gotta lead in a town not so far away, why don't you come check it out with me?" Brandi cocked her head to one side, and feigned innocence with wide eyes and a high pitch to her voice.

"I'm not s'posed to be out searchin' today." Shane gave a small laugh.

"Uh huh, and when have you ever done as you're told?" Brandi couldn't help the smile that spread on her own mouth.

She stood and Shane followed, taking the lead as they walked to a car.

"Hey!" Shane rolled his eyes as he turned to Rick, Brandi turned too sharply, and a pain ripped through her side. She started second guessing if it maybe was too soon to go running around. She feigned disinterest as she listened to the cops' clipped and heated exchange.

Eventually, with a huff of exasperation and a wrinkling of his nose, Shane was back with her, his mood altogether darker. He ran a hand roughly over his head and neck, threw the car door open and jumped in, slamming the door behind him. 


	15. Chapter 14

She was thinking about Sophia, about Carol, and how she had that weird connection with them both, as Shane drove them out. Daryl felt it too. That much was clear to Brandi now, it was in his eyes when he looked at the kid, and written all over his face at the mention of the mother since she ran off. It was in the disbelief and hurt on his features when anyone suggested they stop looking. It was obvious in the simple fact that he opted to keep looking, even after Brandi's fall. 

She pondered on that connection, that link, as Shane drove them to the small town they would later use as a safe place to fuck, away from eyes and ears. She wondered exactly what connected them so, and it hit her like a tonne of bricks when she finally saw it, clear as day, heavy as lead. 

She was Sophia. Daryl was Sophia. Or at least, they could have been.

Daddy was Ed and Mama... well mama wasn't involved in this particular scenario, she certainly wasn't Carol, but _oh my_ if she had been how different life would have been. She wanted her own Mama to be like Carol, to be strong and warm and comforting, and she had wanted it since she watched the little family of three at the start, back at the quarry. Carol always looking out for Sophia, no matter what Ed did or didn't do Sophia was clearly protected by her strong mama. 

Brandi got to thinking what she had done in a past life to deserve what she ended up with, her poor excuse for parents. She tried not to dwell, everything she was and everything she'd come to be was built by her past, and she regretted nothing. Also she had been blessed to have Daryl and... not so much blessed to have Merle but when he was there he did what he could and protected them both.

Sophia and Carol were her and Daryl's might have been, could'a would'a should'a been, and that alone had intrigued them both enough to bond strongly with the mother and daughter. 

Now Carol was missing, and Brandi finally thought she understood why. 

She couldn't protect Sophia anymore, or at least she perceived she couldn't. Daryl and Brandi had swooped in and saved the day, and Sophia had clung to Brandi like a baby bird, and Carol was lost.

She'd gone to find herself again. 

Brandi hoped she hadn't found something else entirely.

*****

The Town was just a few miles down the creek from where Sophia had disappeared on the highway. Brandi wondered if Carol would have gone there, to the place where her control of her family, of her life, had finally shattered. To the snarl up on the road which had led them to the farm, and led them here, to this moment.

Carol thought she was weak, she had this ill perceived notion that she couldn't save her daughter and Brandi so wanted to show her the opposite, she was strong, she had buried a pick axe into her own husbands head, for God's sake, that was badass. Brandi wasn't sure she could do that for someone she loved. 

She looked around the town, at the roads and the houses. It was much the same as any other, picket fences, rose bushes, still neat even after clearly being abandoned, but it stank of the dead and trash twirled in the breeze close to the ground. 

"How did we miss this?" She questioned almost to herself. Shane explained that Daryl had found it on the map just that morning.

"Long way to go on foot" He added, as if Carol being this far out was impossible, but Brandi shook her head and pointed towards the outskirts of town where the houses stopped and the trees began.

"Nah, look, those trees'll lead ya right back to farm if ya c'n keep ya feet facin' the right way. Hour, tops, on foot I should reckon." She shrugged her shoulders and got out the car. "Can't drive anywhere in a damn straight line these days." Shane looked at her out the corner of his eye as he shut the car door behind him. She noticed him watching, tongue between his teeth as he imagined doing awful things to her in one of these abandoned homes. 

But her mind kept falling on Carol, on Daryl and Merle and daddy and Ed, and how these things were intricately connected, how the three of them, her and her brothers, had done nothing when the noise from the Peletier tent had grown loud enough to wake them. How Daryl would move to do something and Merle would grab him, and tell him no. How she herself hadn't moved at all, had complained and stamped her feet like a spoiled child.

Because it was too close to home. She couldn't separate sex with boys from rape with daddy, and she couldn't separate Ed beating Carol from daddy beating Daryl, and it hurt her heart as much as hearing Carol cry in the RV.

"You still here?" Shane was walking along side her as she aimlessly toured the town, her the thoughts in her head traveling at 100 miles per hour. She looked over at him and nodded a single shallow nod, and his eyes narrowed. "Need a partner I can rely on, can't have you zoning out on me." Brandi uttered a harsh laugh.

"Wha's the matter? Rick not lettin' ya play with him no more?" Shane snorted and shook his head more like he was stretching the tendons in his neck than he was disagreeing. 

"Rick don't know what he's doing half the time. Not making the hard choices. We shouldn't be out here. Carol wanted to leave, I can't say that any plainer than I did already." He paused, and Brandi frowned at him. 

"Ya don't think the decisions are all tough?"

"He's making the wrong choices, then." Shane said with an air of sarcasm Brandi didn't much like "Splitting us up to be picked off one by one ain't gonna help anything. We should be together, building shelter. Winter's gonna come and then what? If we had it my way we'd be half way to Fort Benning by now." Brandi snorted then, 

"Fort Bennin's gone" Shane shook his head, but Brandi continued "What makes ya think it ain't suffered the same fate s'everywhere else?" She shrugged at him "I'm tellin ya now, son" Shane laughed loudly at that

"Son?" but Brandi continued

"How many'a those army assholes've ya seen runnin' out here to protect us, compared with how many ya seen dead?" They'd seen some, all over the Atlanta streets outside the CDC for one. "They're as dead as the rest'a us." She spat, disgusted that Shane could be so blind to that. Shane stopped walking and turned to her incredulous. He held his rifle across his chest as if he himself were military. Brandi looked at his boots, large matte black boots which laced up his ankles, and his new haircut... She narrowed her eyes, as Shane spoke.

"Fort Benning'll be there, even if it's empty, it's defensible."

"The _farm_ 's defensible" Brandi cut him off. What was his problem! Did he think he was military, trying to run the show like some kind of independent GI Joe? She shook her head and rolled her eyes as if to dismiss him, and his ridiculous notion of Fort Benning, when he cut her to the quick.

"Hershel don't want us at the farm, Brandi. He want's us out." Slowly she turned back to Shane, her eyes wide now, mouth hanging slightly open. "Yeah, Didn't know that, did you, Ol' Rick making the tough decisions, is he? Leading like a boss, huh?" He had wicked smile on his face like he'd got one up on Brandi, and she just stared at him, disgusted and confused. How could he smile, how could he use things like that to get one over on Rick. 

"This ain't no game, Shane. People are dyin', n missin'... Ya can't fight on shit like this, If nothin' else you n Rick should come together and lead as a team." She threw her hands in the air, sick to the stomach of the whole thing, the whole ego laden mess Shane was laying. He wanted it all, Lori, Carl, the group under his lead.

Rick walked in a week ago and ruined everything. It was a dangerous place to be, deep in the middle of nowhere with Shane, whose mind was a minefield of one-upmanship in a land that was a minefield of re-animated dead, whose virus would leave you the same fate.

"He din't come back jus'ta fuck ya over, Shane. Y'know that, right?" She looked at him, really looked at him. Squared up to him and looked him in the eye. She was about to speak again when Shane put his rifle to his eye, aiming square at her head. She frowned, not entirely sure what was happening when he told her:

"Duck" and she did, and he shot, and she peeled off to one side only to see a dead walker lying at her feet, face torn in half by Shane's on point shot. She felt green at the sight, but she stood as she noticed more shambling and shuffling feet heading in their direction, she grabbed an arrow from her quiver and her bow from her back in a single movement, stretching out her arms and tensing her muscles as she let arrows fly into the faces and eyes of the walkers that almost had them surrounded.

"Walk back, back to the car" Shane whispered urgently as Brandi instead moved forward, into the crowd as if to get better aim that way. She vaguely heard the rifle shooting off, the whizz of bullets around her as they attacked in haphazard fashion the crowd that was seemingly unending. 

"Get back to the car, Brandi!" She vaguely heard him behind her, but she was mesmerised by the herd of the undead. Aggressively they moved forward angry and hungry, but they fell like flies when they were stabbed in the brain.

As the last one fell, courtesy of a bullet from Shane, she turned to back to him, smiling.

"What the fuck are you smiling about? What the hell are you playing at? Back to the car, Brandi, back to the car I said. Those things can easily overwhelm you when they group up that way." He was taking steps towards her, shouting his mouth off like he didn't know they were attracted by noise. She looked at the walkers lying all around her feet, and laughed. She turned her face to the sky and laughed like she'd never laughed before, elated, thrilled and overwhelmed all at once.

Shane was still marching forward, and eventually he was yelling just an inch from her face.

She focussed on him then, grabbed both of his cheeks in her hands and pushed her lips into his, kissing him hard.

After a short questioning second he kissed her back, forcing her mouth open and squeezing the back of her neck painfully with his hand.

But then he pushed her away, and she stumbled over corpses before falling on her ass in a puddle of black blood.


	16. Chapter 15

"What the fuck, Shane!" She got up gingerly, and scowled at him before plucking her arrows out of the dead to refill her quiver.

"We're here with a job to do." He hissed, and she frowned, pulling an arrow out of a walker's forehead with a little effort. 

"Ya din't think there was a job _to_ do!" She wiped the arrow head on her jeans and popped it in her quiver without having to look where it was. 

"But you do" he answered, and she couldn't argue with that. Fine, she thought, scouting around herself. She spied an open garage, caught Shane's eye and nodded at it.

"It's somethin'" she said quietly as Shane sidled up beside her. She pushed her chest out a little and put her hand on his shoulder.  
Brandi-Lynn got what she wanted, she wasn't going to let Shane get away with pushing her in the viscera of a corpse lightly.

In an effort to massage his ego she gave his shoulder a gentle squeeze.

"Could be nothin', what do you think, Shane?" Shane smiled and looked at her

"I think you don't give in easy." Brandi huffed and rolled her eyes.

"C'mon, let's check it out" she stepped boldly forward, and ducked into the small gap left by the half open garage door.

She felt her heart sink, before them, where a car should have been, was a pile of walkers. Long dead, rotting, flies lighting on and off the bodies with every move she made.

Shane pushed the door all the way open, letting the morning sunlight in, which lit the bodies and the dark corners of the building. Brandi saw a dark stain on the ground. Oil from some long forgotten car.

"She was never here." She said sadly, she put her hand to her mouth and turned towards Shane, her head hitting his solid, wide expanse of chest. His arms went around her without hesitation, and she gave a watery sigh.

Carol was disappointing her more with every turn. Good moms didn't disappear, good moms didn't burn up to nothing in the night, to be gone come morning, nothing but ash.

She let her hands creep around Shane, memories of her own mama's demise coming as too much.

"I wanna head back" she whispered against his chest. She pulled back from him and looked up at his face, surprised to find him looking down at her without humour, without mockery. He ran a hand over her hair, cupping her chin as he came to the ends, running a thumb across her lips.  
His touch was soft, caring, and despite herself she sucked his thumb into her mouth, watched him carefully from beneath her lashes, and pulled hard on that thumb which tasted of ash and sweat and gunpowder. A half smile spread on Shane's mouth.

"I ain't about to pretend I know why you're so invested in this middle aged woman." He said in the most gentle voice she'd heard from him. He plucked his thumb from her mouth "but I love what disappointment does to you." He buried his hand in her hair and pulled her head back, kissing her upturned mouth roughly.

The sex was harsh and angry. She climbed on top of him on the floor of the garage, Shane having pulled the door down to the floor in one movement, with one hand. She kissed him forcefully and freed him of his pants as she did so. They hit the floor with a metal thunk as his belt buckle crashed into the concrete. She rubbed his bulging groin roughly, and a hiss escaped him, bringing a smile to her lips.

She just wanted release, she wanted something to prove to her she was in the here and now. Shane was here, Shane was now, and Shane's cock was already oozing precum as they melted down to the floor together. He grabbed Brandi's hips and rocked her back and forward, grinding their pelvises together painfully, gripping too tightly at Brandi's arrow wound. She embraced the burn as she embraced the feeling of being full of him.

She noticed his breathing become ragged and less controlled, his pulling and pushing of her on top of him became more urgent and she thrust her own hand between her legs so she could use that friction against her clit.

She began to moan, Shane began to moan, and seconds before she came he did, exploding inside her, sticky wet come creating the perfect slickness as her legs quivered, and she rubbed at her self with his lubricant as he pumped into her once, twice more.

"Fuck" she whispered, then as she tilted her head back and came with vigour, she yelled "Fuck, Daddy!"

Shane abruptly stopped moving. He lay back, breathing hard, and looked up at her with an eyebrow raised.

"Really?" Brandi shrugged, regained her composure and climbed off him, using her underwear to unceremoniously wipe away the semen that ran down the inside of her leg.

"Don't act so surprised." She said calmly, tossing her underpants to one side and pulling on her jeans. She checked her arrow wound as she did up the fly. It was oozing. "Shit." She said absently, dabbing at it with her hand.

"You always do that? The daddy thing?" Brandi rolled her eyes and stopped fussing with her stitches. 

"Look" she sighed "y'only sleepin' with me 'cause ya can't fuck Lori no more, n I'm only sleepin' with ya 'cause frankly, ain't no one else to do it with. Let's not make this somethin' it ain't." She ran her hands through her hair and collected her weapons back up from the floor. "Let's get outta here. She ain't here. She ain't been here. Fuck." She grabbed the garage door and looked back at Shane behind her. He gave her a nod, rifle held up to his face, and she took a deep breath.

As the shutter door rattled upwards Brandi thought they might never see Carol again. She wanted to head back to the gridlocked highway, just in case, but how to articulate her needs to Shane without him asking stupid questions. Poking holes in her theories and poking fun at her ideas.

She half expected another horde, or maybe even Carol to be standing in the sun beyond the garage door as it opened. Maybe Daryl with his crossbow aimed at her head, a frown on his face as was his resting look. Even Merle, one handed, one stumped, a bloody blackened burn where his hand once was.

Anything would have been preferable to the expanse of deserted streets which faced them.

It just mirrored the feeling in her chest. She chewed on her lip as Shane came out beside her and stretched noisily.

"Come on, we should get back before anyone realises you're missing." Brandi snorted. Half laugh

"Before Daryl does, ya mean, 'Cause he'll kick y'ass" Shane shook his head and headed for the car, Brandi ambling behind him.

She refused to believe Carol wouldn't be found. Refused to assume she was dead or gone or otherwise no longer existing as the group knew her. She was lost, and lost could be found. 

"So" she put her bow and quiver in the boot before getting in the car, and as she sat down and pulled the door shut Shane shrugged and started the car. "If I'm daddy, does that make Carol mommy..." Brandi punched him swiftly in the bicep.

"Fuck off, Shane." She gruffed at him, completely unamused. It was no joking matter. A little girl could be orphaned even though her mother had survived the hideous thing the world had become. Shane was chuckling to himself, shaking his head.

"'The hell is so funny?" She asked him, watching him as he ran his hands over the steering wheel. He shook his head again and she rolled her eyes. "Ain't got time for games" she huffed, looking out of the passenger window. "Carol's missin', li'l girl's a fuckin' orphan..."

"Carol's dead, and we're all orphans, girl" Shane bit out.  "Gotta stop worrying about shit you can't change. Carol is gone, move on." Brandi couldn't bite her tongue any longer, Shane was making her very angry and she was in no mood to keep the peace any more. The standard Dixon reaction came out of her, biting and cruel. 

"What if it was Lori, or Carl?" She asked him sharply. "Although," she shrugged, cocked her head to one side and chuckled her own laugh at him "we know what you do when it's Rick that's missing, right? I mean is it all women and children or just strangers?"

"Don't do that."

"I thought you were a policeman, protect and serve, right?" Brandi carried on as if she hadn't heard him hiss at her through clenched teeth.

"I guess that went out when the military ya seem so keen on bondin' with down at fort Bennin' star'ed shooting' down civilians huh? Were they in the hospital, shootin' in panic, where Rick was still very much alive as ya planned ya story for Lori his wife, n Carl his son?" She paused for breath, well and truly on a roll.

"Shut your damn mouth, you weren't there, you don't know." 

"Yeah, I know you, Shane."

"What, you fuck me twice and you're in my head?" Brandi laughed

"Three times, remember?" That last word was accusatory. He'd raped her, had he really thrown that from his memory? "N no, I watch n I listen n I hear more'n ya think."

"You don't know shit, you backwoods, redneck, inbred, yokel, the fuck you know about family, and love," Brandi scoffed as Shane reeled off all the things she couldn't possibly know "friendship and brotherhood" he stopped short of sucking his teeth and Brandi was wound up enough to push him, hard, on the shoulder, and he replied with a backhanded slap which caught her in the face.


	17. Chapter 16

"You're supposed to be resting,"

"Brandi-Lynn!"

"What happened to your face?" Brandi put her hands to her ears, careful not to touch her bruised cheekbone (which she was pretty sure Shane had broken) and shook her head gently. Everyone was shouting at once, too much of a huge influx of information. Sophia had attached herself to Brandi's side instantly, and Brandi peeled the child's arms off her one by one.

"I coul'n't sit back n do nothin'" she said to Rick, who eyed her suspiciously with his hands on his hips. She didn't like the gesture, it framed his groin, flexed his muscles and was a stance almost as huge in ego as Shane tended to be. An Alpha move, which demanded attention and obedience, two things she wasn't willing to give to just anyone. she narrowed her eyes at him, inviting an argument.

"Someone's gotta be out there lookin'. I'm doin' what anyone else should be." Rick had enough dignity to nod solemnly and take that hit, but he replied with

"I don't wanna have to deal with Daryl if anything happens to you. We already lost Merle." Like he needed to remind her of that. She nodded once.

"Fine." She peeled Sophia off her again, the child clinging tighter than Brandi's own shadow. "Sophia, c'mon kid, gimme a break." The little one relented, folding her arms across her narrow chest instead, and pouting.

"You could try being a little more gentle." Lori said, Carl firmly clasped in her own arms. "Her mother's gone missing." Brandi narrowed her eyes at Lori, so very tempted to speak her mind. Instead she gave a shallow head dip.

"Y'know what?" She looked around at them. Lori hiding behind Carl, using the poor kid as a barricade, the same kid she was always sending to be watched by someone else when it wasn't convenient for her to be mom.  
Carol wouldn't have done that. Carol was a strong protector, and if she had a choice, she knew who she would choose to be daughter to.

Where the Hell was she?!

Rick's pack leader stance, Shane's smug sneer, It was all too much. Brandi put a hand to her temple and closed her eyes as she rubbed her head.

"Y'know," she repeated "I'mma have to lie down" she finished, looking at Rick who nodded and pointed his arm in the direction of her and Daryl's tent, as if he gave permission.

"I'm coming with you" Sophia said matter of factly as Brandi turned to walk up the steady slope. She didn't have the energy to argue. She needed to convince Daryl that they should bed down with everyone else, It was safer, closer.

She sat down heavily in the sweaty little polyester pyramid, rolled her head back, closed her eyes, and tucked her knees into the crooks of her elbows. Sophia sat in front of her, legs crossed, arms out behind her, holding her up.

"You don't like me very much, do you?" Sophia asked quietly in her high child's voice. Brandi didn't open her eyes, for a moment she thought she wouldn't answer the stupid question, the girl was harmless, who wouldn't like her?  
But Sophia was just a kid, she probably needed some kind of external validation, especially with both her parents MIA.

Well, sort of.

"I like ya jus' fine, kid." She said, still sitting like perhaps she was meditating. She opened one eye, and Sophia was thoughtful, looking off into the middle distance. She looked sad. "I don' like touchin'" Brandi tried as an explanation instead, and the girl turned to her, interested. Brandi shrugged. "Touchin' was bad when I was growin' up." Sophia nodded as if she understood completely, and that made Brandi so very angry. She shouldn't know, with a mama like hers how could she possibly? Carol spent the child's whole life ensuring she didn't have to know about not wanting to be touched.

"You touch Daryl." The kid said, her tone accusatory.

"S'diff'rent" Brandi huffed "we shared a womb,"

"And Shane"

"'S'cuse me?" Brandi sat bolt upright, dropping her knees from the crooks of her elbows, and they fell to the ground with an audible bang.

"You smell like him. When you came back, from looking for my mom, you smelled like Shane." Just the idea made Brandi feel sick. Daryl used to climb into her bed and ask why it smelled like bleach, or why it was wet. She thought he didn't know, maybe he wanted her to tell him outright. He was like that, sometimes. Therapy would have been a good job for him.

Of course at that age he may not have known what the smell was. At that age, but not much later she'd caught him pumping jizz into his hand like it was going out of fashion.

Will Dixon didn't give a shit about the suggestion that teenage siblings shouldn't really be sharing a room. Brandi didn't care, it was more embarrassing for Daryl to be caught, than for her as the catcher. But of course, at that point, he would have known exactly what the smell was and where the wet patch in her bed came from.

She rubbed her face without thinking, catching her cheekbone, hissing through her teeth so as not to swear as pain emanated from her cheek into her head.  
Sophia sat to attention suddenly as she did so, and Brandi waved her off.

Once Daryl had discovered himself, Will had often called her to the bathroom instead, pushing against her heavily against the grubby off white tiles, at one point she'd fought, and he knocked her out against them, cracking two tiles with her head. She woke up on the damp and mouldy carpet several hours later, with a throbbing head and dried blood in her hair.

She shook the memories away, and they dissipated like smoke. Her cheek and her side throbbed with the beat of her heart and she wondered if they still had any of Merle's 'special' painkillers around.

She wanted a cigarette. She wanted some dope. She would kill for two fingers of whiskey. Anything to kill the pain in her face, and in her heart.

Sophia sighed quietly to herself, and frankly Brandi didn't want to know.

*****

She didn't realise she had fallen asleep until she felt Daryl's boot shucking into her ribs the opposite side of her stitches. She squinted her eyes open and groaned at the sight of her brother standing over her.

"What he do this time?" He asked her, his voice quiet and rough. She opened her eyes again, which had drifted closed. Daddy, she thought. Daryl's in my bed finally asking what daddy did.

"Who?" She asked, not fully in touch with the waking world she was being rudely pulled in to. She heard a soft snort from Daryl and felt him squat down beside her.

"Who d'ya think? That prick pig Shane." Brandi rolled her eyes and sat up.

"What makes ya think he did anythin'?" She asked him, and he put his hand on her face, and though he was gentle the pain was immediate.

"That." Daryl scowled and narrowed his eyes impossibly farther than they already were. "He hit you?" Brandi didn't answer straight away. She looked Daryl in the eye a moment, chin lifted defiantly, but she nodded eventually, a small shallow sigh escaping her. She couldn't lie to Daryl, he'd known her since they were simple cells.

"I asked for it." She said tightly. "Where's Sophia?" Daryl bobbed his head in the direction of the main camp.

"Readin' with Carl n Lori down the hill. How the hell ya ask to be punched in the face?" Brandi huffed and got up, almost knocking Daryl back on his ass.

"He din't punch me, he caught me pushin' me away cause I shoved 'im." Daryl snorted a laugh at that, a smug and triumphant sound. Brandi changed the subject, she didn't want to be thinking about personal drama.

"How d'ya get on out there today?" Daryl stood, albeit awkwardly in their small tent, and avoided her eyes.

"Nothin'" he said sullenly "not one damn thing." He scrubbed his toe at some dirt on the ground sheet and looked up at his sister. "Trail's goin' cold. Chasin' ghosts out there." Brandi nodded sadly. She'd thought as much but daren't say it. A heavy coldness lay on her chest, and began to spread, a feeling of dread creeping through her body.

"Ya think she's dead?" She asked quietly, and Daryl shrugged.

"Nah, I don't. She's jus' gone. But, Why?" Brandi met his dark blue gaze with her matching eyes and sighed through her nose.

"She lost everythin'. Only place we ain't been is back to the highway. Maybe she went lookin' for it all again." Daryl chewed on the cuticle of his thumb.

"Maybe" he replied, but he didn't sound at all convinced. He didn't sound as though it was the most important thing happening right then either. "There's more, Brand'." He continued sounding heavy hearted "Glenn told us somethin', ya gotta get up." Now she could hear yelling, Shane shouting his mouth off, barking orders at everyone. The word Military ran through Brandi's mind again.

"This is our lives! You can _not_ tell me you're alright with this!"

"Lower your voice, Shane" Brandi looked at Daryl as Rick's hushed and panic tones met her ears. Daryl's face wasn't hopeful.

"They've been in a bad place for a while, but things got worse overnight, Brandi. There's a tension I don't like. Like Rick knows, or maybe, Shane told 'im he's better'n him." He coughed purposefully.

 "There're walkers in the barn, n the group's fallin' apart." Brandi's eyes widened, her first thought that of Sophia's safety. Who the fuck kept walkers on their property with Kids running around?! She turned and exited their tent, which suddenly felt too small and confined and hot, anyway. Somewhere a mile behind her she heard Daryl call her name, as she scanned the group, which was heading for the barn as one entity, for the little girl who thought she wasn't liked, wasn't wanted.

She couldn't see Sophia among them.


	18. Chapter 17

"What the fuck's goin' on?" Brandi burst, jogging to catch up with everyone as they stormed towards the barn which sat just meters from their camp.

"Watch your language" Lori hissed, Carl's hand held tightly in her own.

"Keep your voices down!" Rick yelled, Brandi thought rather hypocritically. She looked behind her for Daryl, and found him marching right alongside her.

"We can _not_ just sweep this under the rug." Shane spat, his eyes were crazy. He was angry. "These creatures, next to your kid? Your _wife_?" Shane ran a hand over his head and neck, he was breathing hard. He walked up to the barn doors and kicked them, much to Rick's dismay

"Stop this!" He yelled, as Shane jumped back and the doors pushed out against their padlock. Pale fingers eked out and clawed at the wood panelling. Long yellowed fingernails scraped against the metal lock, and when the walkers realised they couldn't reach what they wanted - Shane -they began to roar and moan.

"We have two choices" Shane turned and spoke to the whole group, T-Dog standing beside him looked about to faint.

"We have to leave" he said quietly, but Rick was shaking his head. Shane spoke again.

"We bust in, and we deal with this, or we go."

"We can't go." Rick said, waving his arm in a calm down gesture at Shane, emphasising each word.

"Fort Benning." Shane said simply as if it answered all the world's problems, and Brandi snorted.

"We can't go." Rick said more forcefully. Brandi looked around and saw Sophia, finally, standing back from everyone else, her small face pale and scared. She hadn't run to Brandi, and that was Brandi's fault. Now she was standing feeling lonely and afraid, and Brandi felt guilty. She reached a hand out and the kid ran to her and took it. Her hands were freezing despite the heat. 

"Why can't we go, Rick?" Shane asked incredulous, and a little voice spoke up, on Brandi's left. Everyone turned to look at the pale little girl with blond hair.

"Because my mom's still out there." Shane's face tightened, he walked up to Sophia far too aggressively for Brandi's liking.

"Okay, listen, I think it's time we thought about"

"Shane!" Brandi admonished, tucking the kid behind her defensively "Shut. Up."

"We got a new lead jus' th'other day!" Daryl sneered, hating how close Shane was to his sister, the way he looked at her with veins in his temples throbbing. 

"Two days ago Daryl. If you're gonna get a decent lead it's in the first, and we have nothing."

"Ya don't know what ya damn well talkin' about!" Daryl stormed up to Shane, who backed him up to the barn instantly. Backed him towards those reaching, rotting, hands. Brandi watched it all with wide eyes.

People yelling, screaming at each other. It was all too much like her childhood, too close to home. Will and Daryl fighting and yelling before fists flew, and Daryl ending up in a heap on the floor, sobbing and broken. She pulled her hand from Sophia's sharply.

"Hey!" She yelled, striding forward as Daryl and Shane almost came to blows. "Ya missin' the bigger picture here." She pulled at Shane's arm but he was solid and didn't move. She looked around for help, and T-Dog darted forward, grabbing Shane in a bear hug and moving him away with force.

"Get the hell offa me man!" Shane shrugged T-Dog off, and looked around. "We got to make this right! We have to make this right, right here and right now."

"Y'ok?" Brandi asked her brother quietly, and Daryl nodded at her, he was completely unscathed, but visibly upset, to her at least.

"I am. What about the kid?" Brandi nodded back at him.

"Yeah, she'll be fine. She's good" Brandi put a gentle hand on Daryl's back and pushed him away from the barn doors as everyone around them continued to argue. "Thought he was gonna hit ya." Daryl snorted quietly.

"Let 'im, he'll see what happens" Brandi didn't reply. She'd never seen Daryl fight back against their father, most times he just wrapped his arms around his head to lessen the blows, but she wasn't up for talking about that.

"Let me talk to Hershel." Rick was saying, slowly and carefully, and the group seemed to begin to calm. Shane rubbed his head again, a gesture Brandi was fast seeing as him trying very hard to keep his composure. She chewed her lip and watched the exchange between Rick and Shane. Daryl had been right, tensions between the old friends were at an all time high, somehow, somewhere, a trust had been lost, and she knew without doubt that Rick knew what was happening while he was supposedly dead. She wondered if Rick knew about the baby. If Shane knew.

No. If Shane knew, things would be different. She was sure Shane would be different.

T-Dog, Glenn, Lori and Carl began to move away as the atmosphere began to clear, leaving Shane and Rick glaring at each other. Shane was slowly shaking his head, disbelief all over his face.

"The man is crazy Rick," Shane held his hands out to his sides, inviting argument which didn't come "he thinks those things are alive? Are people?" He shook his head again. "I want watches on this barn." Rick's face tightened and he put his hands on his hips

"I don't think... we can't have guns, Shane. Let me talk to him"

"And while you _talk_ what if they break out?"

"They haven't yet. You didn't even know about this"

"Well, now I do. You might be comfortable with them around your wife and kid, but I'm not. I don't know what that says about you and me, man"

"Woah." Brandi got between the two officers. She turned to Sophia. "Catch up with Lori n Carl" the kid looked like she might argue, but Brandi just glared at her, and she trotted off mumbling to herself like a teenager. "We are on the same side" she said turning to Rick and Shane, Daryl still hanging around the edges of the three of them, pacing heavily. "We need to work this out all together."

"Who the fuck are you?" Shane asked her roughly, he gestured at her with his gun hand and Daryl was at her side in an instant.

"Hey!" He yelled, but Shane ignored him.

"Why don't you go wash up, or hang out Laundry, you're just a little redneck girl and you ain't done much to help. Leave the worry about the real stuff, to the big boys."

"I'm warnin' ya pig" Daryl spat.

"Hell I bet y'only called Brandi because ya mama couldn't consciously call you Bourbon. Right?" 

"Shane that's enough. Brandi found Sophia, she and Daryl are gonna find Carol. She's right, we need to work together on this." Brandi spoke over Rick, right over him like he wasn't there.

"Ya jus' angry 'cause ya can't get y'own way." She said to Shane, not sure if she was talking about walkers anymore, stepping in front of Daryl as he pitched his own fit, going red in the face and breathing hard like a tormented bull. "But, I will happily stand guard here." She tried to focus on the problem at hand. "Daryl will. We want this place safe as much as you do." She shrugged her shoulders "y'ain't gotta get sexist, or racist. I'm on y'all's side. We all are. Show a li'l damn solidarity, leave the drama n soap opera n personal shit behind ya, ain't no time for that no more." Rick and Shane shared a look, but not with each other, they both looked at her with mirrored expressions. She turned on her heel and began to walk back to the camp. Daryl sneered at Shane like a feral cat before following her.

"What was that?" He gruffed at her, still arching his back and baring his teeth. Brandi rolled her eyes, stopped walking and turned to her brother. He was a few minutes older than her, but recently he had aged. His eyes were tired, worn with the worry of looking for Sophia and then Carol, the worry of what she was up to with Shane. 

"We need to move closer to the others" she said instead of what was really on her mind. "It's safer" she added as he opened his mouth to argue. "Now we know what's in the barn, we should be all together." Daryl eyed her carefully a long moment before nodding shallowly.

"K. Ya deal with movin' us, I'mma go out again." Brandi sighed, wanting to argue what the point was any more, but instead she nodded.

"Be safe, bro." She said tightly "promise me, ya'll be back by dark" he tucked his thumb into his crossbow strap and nodded.

"A'course I will, Brand', ya gone soft in the head?" Brandi smiled, and Daryl gave her a small smirk. She threw her arms around him, taking him by surprise. He stiffened, and couldn't have hugged her back if he wanted to as she'd crushed one of his arms between them. 

"I love ya, ya piece'a trash. That okay?" Daryl snorted right in her ear.

"Yeah, I guess, soft lass. Gerroff"


	19. Chapter 18

Brandi stood on the grass next to her and Daryl's tent, preparing herself to pack everything and move, when she felt someone behind her.

It was odd, that feeling. She knew it was real, knew that if she turned someone would be stood behind her. If she was as good as Daryl or Merle at the tracking thing, she would have known exactly who it was just by their breathing, their footsteps, their shadow.

But Daddy had insisted girls should be at home, not running around the woods, and so she had to learn what she could from snippets of conversations, from books, and on her own. She owed a lot to book learning, her lack of essential skill and the instinct a hunter possessed the most obvious in that moment.

But when he coughed, a soft clearing of his throat, Brandi knew it was Shane. She waited a moment before turning, drawing out the pause and the quiet that followed.

She was used to prejudice, but Shane had actually hit a nerve when he called her bourbon. She'd wondered the same herself when she realised her parents really liked a drink. She turned her head towards him slightly, cocking an ear to invite him to say what he had to say. She imagined him rubbing his head aggressively, frustrated at talking to her back. 

"I want to apologise." A laugh, loud and threatening, bubbled in Brandi's chest, the thought of Shane apologising was hilarious. She barely held it together, just enough for him to start speaking again. "You're useful. You're an appreciated member of the group." Brandi turned to him then, her face twisted into a frown.

"Useful? Gee thanks, Officer Walsh." She rolled her eyes and Shane marched forwards, almost knocking her back a step as he barged into her personal space, but she managed to stand her ground and not back off. He was in her face, and though she'd gladly fuck him, the confrontational gesture wasn't much to her liking.

"I need your help."

"I'm busy." She sneered. "I'm movin' me n Daryl down to your camp." She actually expected a real apology, she shook her head, chastising herself for being so stupid. He didn't think he'd done a damn thing wrong.

"This is important." Shane said with a warning tone to his voice. Brandi started to pull her and Daryl's belongings out of their shelter.

"More important than our safety?" She wondered, but Shane had an answer for everything.

"This is for the safety of everyone. We need watches on that barn and you offered" Brandi sighed and turned to him, twisting on her feet where she rested on her haunches.

"Why dontcha ask ya girlfriend to do it?" She hissed at him, keeping her voice just loud enough to have him marching forward again. This time she didn't feel like moving away.

"Shut your mouth" he said through gritted teeth.

"No" she said with a shrug and a hint of humour so the word came out with three syllables. "Why should I?" Shane pressed is lips together and breathed heavily through nose, hunkering down next to her.

"Lori's pregnant." He paused and watched her face as if he expected surprise, but Brandi just shrugged.

"Well, y'ain't the kinda guy to stop n rubber up, are ya?" Shane seemed shocked that she was so blasé. "I knew" she said, waving her hand at him and standing to stretch her legs. Shane rubbed his head, back and forward like he had an itch at his crown.

"I need to talk to her, was Rick that told me, I need to talk to the mother of my child." He was on the verge of yelling, he took a moment to contain himself. "You offered, Brandi," he managed a lot quieter "I need you to do this" Brandi shook her head.

"I have to move me n my bro downhill. Ya wanna play freaky families with the Grimeses ya gonna hafta count me out." Shane looked at her for a moment, breathing hard,

"Brandi, please. I need to... a baby, a baby?" He seemed confused, torn. Brandi was about to relent, but he turned and was marching away again. She took a deep unsteady breath as she watched him. There was more to this than met the eye, more to Shane than this angry, disillusioned man. Suddenly she wanted to delve deep inside the man and find out. He was acting like a dick, but she was certain there was more to it than wanting Rick's family for himself, and wanting to be leader of the group. It didn't feel like a power struggle to her.

*****

Brandi had almost completed packing everything up from her and Daryl's own mini camp when the shouting started. Their tent was a pile on the floor ready to be moved, their clothes and weapons and ammo packed away. She straightened and shielded her eyes from the intense Georgia sun and looked down the hill where she saw Daryl running up towards her.

"Where the hell's Rick?" He asked, as though he was accusing her of hiding him.

"What?" She managed in reply, looking around her as if Rick might spring up and yell surprise, Daryl seemed so convinced.

"We were supposed to go out, look for Carol, but the prick's damn well disappeared, n now Shane's yellin' that we need to fix this." Brandi narrowed her eyes.

"Fix it?"

"Uh huh. He's totin' guns n Shoutin' his mouth off down there. Wants us to burst the barn open." Brandi watched the nonsense of sound and movement down the hill, then turned to her brother.

"What d'ya think we should do?"she asked him wide eyed. "What would you do Daryl?" Daryl turned from her and the scene below him and grabbed his handgun from the back of his pants. 

"Those things need dealin' with, whatever happens after, huappens. We hafta leave? We'll find somewhere, even if it's just me n you. We could look for Merle..." Brandi nodded and picked up her bow and quiver. Daryl headed slowly down hill and she followed just a few paces behind. Because he was right, Shane was right. If those things broke out they would all die, and if they had to leave, they'd survive somehow.

"You take this, Carl and you keep your mother safe" Brandi watched as she came to the bottom of the mound, Shane giving Carl a gun, Sophia had a gun, everyone had guns. Daryl had a shot gun he hadn't had moments before. She frowned as Shane stormed off suddenly, much to Maggie's dismay. There was a collective gasp from the group and she watched where Shane was headed, where Rick and Hershel had walkers on leashes.

"What the Hell is this?" She said to Daryl who shook his head like he didn't know and turned to follow Shane.

It all kicked off, and before she could gather herself enough, before the stunned surprise of what was happening could wear off enough for her to hear, Brandi watched as Shane unloaded several bullets into a walkers chest.

And she kept coming, at the end of her snare she roared and growled and reached for Shane. Now everyone was gathered, and Shane was shouting his mouth off so loud and so strained she could barely make out the words.

"They killed Amy, they killed Otis." Shane yelled, as Rick tried to get him back down off his high horse.

Sophia clung to the back of Brandi's denim jacket and whimpered like a scared puppy, and Brandi couldn't comfort her as she watched Shane put his gun to the walker woman's head and laid a bullet straight into her brain. She fell in slow motion, Hershel, bearing the brunt of her dead weight, almost went with her. His friends and family looked so distraught, but the group, they had had enough, and T-Dog, and Daryl looked ready to have this over with.

Shane was still yelling, and Brandi's heart sank as she realised she would have to help, that Shane was going to open those doors and ruin their shelter and safety by trying to make sure of it. They would be exiled, another place they couldn't stay.

The barn doors flew outwards and Shane jumped back. Brandi's heart fluttered as rotten ragged withering arms reached for his chest, though she hardly noticed that, thought nothing of it, in fact.

Daryl and T-Dog ran forward as Rick shot the walker on his own pole in the head. There was yelling, screaming, gunshots, all the sights and all the sounds grating on Brandi's senses. She watched as Lori dragged Carl behind her, and pulled Sophia forward.

"Go to Lori" she said in a rush and Sophia's big hazel eyes turned to her in panic. "Lori!" Brandi yelled, and was thankful the woman reached out her arms for the girl.

She pulled her bow forward and loaded up, but already bodies littered the ground like fallen leaves. A last pale overweight male teetered forward and Brandi got him with an arrow between the eyes. As she did she fell to her knees, overcome with the fear, the excitement, the adrenaline.

It was over, the walkers were dead and she was glad her stuff was already packed because she just wanted to leave.

"Mom?!" Brandi shot her eyes to Sophia who had yelled, but the walkers were dead and nothing was left in the barn. She frowned, and noticed Sophia was actually looking to the tree line, a grin on her face, she tried to pull from Lori, and Brandi turned to see.

"No, no no no" Daryl was mumbling, but didn't seem to be able to move. Brandi watched as Carol stumbled towards them, was she hurt? Even worse was she bit?

But no.

"Walker!" Shane yelled, holding his gun up and aiming at Carol, as Sophia finally ripped herself from Lori's arms and darted towards the thing that Carol used to be. It swayed and the growls reached Brandi's ears in time to snap her to her senses and grab Sophia as she passed. The girl yelled again for her mother as Shane's gun blasted. 

"Mom!" 

"No, Sophia, no no no"  
The thing that used to be Carol kept coming, a hole in its chest not hindering it at all. Daryl moved forward, shot gun in hand, and blasted Carol in the face.  
Sophia screamed in agony as Brandi's already suffering heart broke in two. Daryl fell to his knees, staring at the dusty ground between them, even Shane had enough respect to keep his I told you so's to himself.

Shit Brandi thought he even looked sorry.

The only sounds were Sophia's wrenching sobs.


	20. Chapter 19

Brandi took to sleeping in the RV, wrapped around Sophia like she might protect her from the evils outside that way. They napped that way, exhausted from the morning's events.

That connection with the kid hadn't lessened, it had grown stronger with her mother's death, and now Daryl seemed closer to her too. They'd lost their mama so young, younger than Sophia, they knew how it was, how it felt. They weren't alone, they had had each other, they both wanted to make sure Sophia had the same.

Things had changed on the farm since Shane had brazenly burst both the barn doors open and Hershel's bubble. The atmosphere was heavy, loaded with the weight of things that no one dared to say. Hershel's daughter Beth had watched her mother, who she believed was sick, gunned down in cold blood and had taken ill with shock. Hershel himself had disappeared.

The dynamics between Shane and Rick had changed course, again. Brandi had watched as Rick and Lori and then Rick and Shane argued about Rick leaving the farm to find Hershel.

But Rick was right to do it. Hershel had done so much for them, and they owed it to the man to ensure he was ok. Although he'd taken Glenn, which Brandi wasn't sure was Rick's best move.

She rubbed her head, sitting on the steps to the RV, her butt just inside the open doorway. The sun was half way through it's arc down to setting and the rumble in her guts was telling her it was almost dinner time.

Her ears picked up the heavy footsteps of someone approaching, the unrushed gait of someone depleted.

The last person she expected to see when she turned her head was Shane.

"Can I talk to you?" He asked, his voice unusually quiet and level. Brandi frowned at him, looked around to check no one was watching, then bobbed her head indicating the inside of the RV, before getting up and leading the way.

"What's up?" Brandi asked him, sitting at the tiny table in the centre of the vehicle. Shane looked at Sophia, asleep on the double bed in the back. "She's dead to the world" Brandi said without thinking about the words before they fell from her mouth. "Sleepin'" she clarified quickly, and Shane let out a humourless laugh. He scratched his head, stayed standing. He went to speak several times hesitantly. Brandi scowled at him, uncomfortable with him towering over her.

"Sit" she said sharply. He rubbed his head again before flopping down opposite her at the table.

"Today sucked" he managed quietly, spreading his fingers on the table between them and looking at them before turning his eyes on her. A little shiver threatened at the top of Brandi's spine and she cut it off by shifting her position slightly. She leaned forward a little.

"Understatement of the year." She huffed, rolling her eyes. Shane nodded, leaned back, away from her, out of her space. Brandi narrowed her eyes at him. "Ya din't come here to shoot the shit 'bout the barn, Shane. Whassup?" Shane took a deep breath, went to rub his head for the hundredth time and stopped himself, running his hands down his face instead, peeking at her over his fingers. Again Brandi had to shift position, Shane's big melted chocolate eyes boring into her. She reminded herself not to act sexy, no lip biting and chest trusting.

"What, Shane? Ya start talkin' or ya start walkin'," she cringed inwardly. What the hell was that?

"Lori." Shane said, and Brandi couldn't help the curl that her lip took of its own volition. Shane rubbed his hand over his crown, shuffled his feet. "Look. This ain't... it ain't how you think." Brandi sighed and slumped in her chair, but didn't speak. She wanted Shane to explain, quickly, before she kicked him out the RV. He watched her a moment, eyebrows raised, face almost smirking, knowing he was getting to her, and enjoying it despite himself.

"Sleeping with Lori, I never meant to fall for her" Brandi rolled her eyes and leaned forward.

"D'ya have a point?" She hissed at him, hating the thought of him and Lori. She didn't know why but it made her angry and even jealous to think of them naked together. Her feelings about it confused her and she slammed her fists on the table. "C'mon Walsh, what the fuck's ya point?" Shane jumped back and placed his hands flat on the table again.

"Calm, Dixon, ok? I'm trying to explain something here. It's hard." Brandi snorted at that. "Grow up, please?" But Shane was smirking, too and the weird tension dissipated, a little. "I walked into that hospital, and I was gonna take Rick outta there, save his ass like I couldn't during the shoot out." He paused and took a steadying breath. "The army were there, and they were shooting civilians, people that weren't bit, and, he was dead" he looked Brandi in the eye squarely for the first time since he'd walked into the RV. "He. Was. Dead. I checked, there was no heartbeat but I knew I couldn't be sure, and there were all these machines and wires and tubes and shit..." he took another breath, ran his hands over his head, he was stalling, and Brandi tried desperately to be patient as he told this story.

"I couldn't save him, I knew then I couldn't so I blocked the door to his room and I left, I left him, Brandi, and I knew, _I knew_ I had to help some other way, keeping Lori and Carl alive, for Rick. Do you see?" She did. She didn't want to, but it was dawning on her exactly what the whole mess was, how and why it started. She chewed her tongue and shook her head a little. "I couldn't save Rick, I knew, so I, I saved what I could of his. Sleeping with Lori, I felt closer... and now... now she's pregnant and I know it destroys Rick, but, but no one knows how much it's destroying me. I'm just the asshole who slept with his best friend's wife and started off the chain reaction that killed Hershel's family and put his kid in whatever fucking state she's in..." he paused and looked up, surprise written all over his face as at the same moment Brandi realised her vision had blurred, and a tear over spilled her eye, coursing down her cheek slow enough to tickle.

She reached up and wiped it away quickly, as if he might not have seen, sniffed and shrugged her shoulders.

"It don't absolve ya, Shane. What ya did today, what ya did then, ya've made some bad choices." She tried to sound hard, but her voice was shaking just enough that she knew Shane would notice. Shane nodded carefully and leaned back on his seat, putting a hand over his mouth.

"Yeah, I know." Brandi nodded, sat back and folded her arms under her bust.

"Ya gotta make it right."

"Yeah, I know that too."

*****

It was hours later that Daryl stormed into the RV, the door banging into the outside wall as he yanked it open. Sophia and Brandi were preparing to go to the house where they'd been invited to eat, she was going to find Daryl and bring him too, now she didn't need to.

"Dare?"

"Stupid dumb bitch." Brandi's eyebrows shot up to her hairline

"Excuse me?" She shot her hand out and shoved him on the front of his shoulder "whatcha mouth in fronta the little'un." He pressed his lips together and looked at his sister.

"That damn Lori askin' me to go lookin' for Rick, then tells me I'm selfish for not wantin'a go" Brandi frowned at him,

"Why don'tcha wanna?" She asked, but she knew. He'd spent his last few days looking for Carol and now? She was dead, it was a waste of time and energy and with the whole camp feeling so down, it was a wonder he hadn't shot off and left them all behind.

She almost laughed, because that wasn't what normally happened. She was the runaway in the family, not him. She'd taken to lying to herself a lot recently, she had to stop.

"Ain't lookin' for no one else, not anymore" Sophia was looking between them earnestly, Brandi touched her blond head gently.

"Why don't ya run up to the house, me n Daryl'll be along." The girl hesitated, but Brandi gave her a big grin and she seemed satisfied, leaving the door of the RV open and rushing towards the farmhouse.

"That is pretty selfish, Daryl"

"Ya can't call me on that. I spent days lookin' for the kids mama, ya nearly got killed, ain't lookin' for no one else. Not now. Not after... that." When they had found Sophia Brandi had felt completely lost, her life had sudden meaning, sudden purpose, when she had someone to be out there looking for. She was surprised Daryl didn't feel the same now Carol was found. The difference, of course, was that Carol was dead. It put a bitter spin on things.

"Layin' her in that hole, in front'a the kid... brought back memories, ya know?" Daryl slumped into a seat at the small table where Brandi had earlier sat with Shane. He stared at his fingers as they toyed with each other at the ends of his hands as if they were strange things he'd never noticed before. Brandi put a hand gently on his shoulder and he looked up at her. "Bad ones. Mom." He didn't need to say anymore. Brandi could see it all, clear as day. Could hear the sound of dirt being thrown on the coffin with a cold hard thump. Watching for what seemed like hours, turning to see the mourners had left, and only she and Daryl remained, hand in hand, half expecting her to wake up still.

"She weren't even in there" Daryl said quietly as though he'd seen the same pictures in his head. "She weren't nothin' but dust." Brandi took a watery breath and slid her hand from his shoulder, before sliding jello-like into the seat opposite him.

"I know" she whispered. "I think daddy..." Daryl hissed, and she corrected herself "...Will... put some clothes in or somethin'." She drummed her fingers on the table and looked out of the window next to her. "Did he... did Will hit ya after that?" Daryl frowned at her.

"Ya know he did." But Brandi shook her head.

"No, like, immediately after. Did he touch you? Was there respite?" Daryl frowned a little deeper and turned to look out the window, too. He tapped his thumbs on the table a moment or two before saying anything.

"A little. You?" Brandi chewed her lip, smiled to herself and nodded.

"Yeah. A little." It seemed she had a knack for finding the good in the bad. Mama died, but daddy didn't touch them for a while after.

She knew she'd lied to herself- oh what a habit it had become- that Will only touched her because his wife died, but there had been earlier instances, and Daryl didn't question the change in her story. He obviously knew the truth she wasn't willing to tell even herself.

"Ya know, we was just goin' to dinner. Ya comin'?" Daryl chewed his tongue and nodded.

"Yeah, I guess." He got up and Brandi followed him, wondering what would become of them both now they had nothing to keep them all going. 


	21. Chapter 20

"Who the hell is that?" T-dog stepped back from the car, pointing at the window.

It had been quite a night, but nothing Brandi and Daryl weren't used to. Even Sophia seemed unphased.

Lori had disappeared to find Rick alone and got into an accident, nearly died, but Shane had got her back to the farm in one piece by telling her Rick was back.

Brandi had watched them interacting, wondering about what Shane had confessed before, that Lori was a way for him to feel close to Rick in his absence, and she chewed her lip as she watched them.

"A white lie" he said "to keep you safe." That word, spat out venomously, safe, like it was poison and he needed to get it out of his throat.

To keep her safe and keep his brother on side, or to keep her safe because he couldn't imagine his world without her? Brandi wondered, face contorting to a frown as they spoke in hushed tones just feet away from where she smoked one of her brother's cigarettes in the shade of a large tree.

He certainly wasn't making things right, as he'd said he would.  
She'd stubbed the cigarette out just as they went in, along with Carl too, who had just spectacularly found out Lori was expecting a baby.

Now Rick was back with Glenn and Hershel and apparently a newbie. Brandi strolled over and looked in the window as Rick explained.

It was just a kid, 18, 20 maybe, fast asleep or comatose she couldn't tell, but he was in a bad way, pale and fitful, sweat springing out on his skin.

"No one is looking, he's not a threat." Brandi looked over to the group.

"He's a pup." she said "don't mean he ain't dangerous." Rick made a placating gesture with his hands, reaching them out towards her

"Hershel, the Greene's, everyone here was a stranger and they've been good to us." Brandi shook her head.

"Ya wanna take that risk, Rick?"

"Look, he's out, will be for hours, he's not going anywhere, we'll put him in the barn, put up watches." Rick turned to Lori and pleaded with her. "I couldn't consciously leave him to bleed out"

So Brandi found herself standing guard at the barn's double doors. Bow slung over her shoulder, glock in her hand, safety on. She kept checking that, she was uncomfortable with a gun.

Safety on.

The sky was taking on the green edges that meant dawn was coming, and the odd bird twittered out a staccato of noise, getting ready for the morning's ensemble chorus. Brandi yawned loudly, wondering when Shane would come and relieve her, wondering if Sophia had slept ok without her.

She hated her own company. Her mind wandered, unfocused and unbidden, often into a past she'd rather forget. Or she'd distract herself trying to remember the names of the guys she'd had one night stands with, even though a lot of the time she hadn't even had their name on the night in question. Instead she gave them Aliases based mostly on imagery.  
She huffed a sigh, blowing air out of her mouth hard enough to move her greasy bangs from her face. It didn't matter, she couldn't remember much of anything from college. Missed lectures and archery competitions she should have aced, would have if she wasn't so hungover all the time.

She checked the safety on the handgun again. On. Good.

She peered over at camp, squinting as if she could see better that way, wondering if Shane would be much longer, she was shattered.

"Hey." Brandi span on the spot, lifting the glock up as she did so, heart beating a little too fast in her chest, only to find Shane coming around from the back of the barn.

"Holy shit, Shane" she chastised, "'the fuck're ya doin'? Keep sneakin' up on me." Shane threw her a sloppy grin, his rifle slung over his shoulder haphazardly, making Brandi nervous.

"You didn't know I was there, huh?" Brandi sneered at him, lowering the gun again and turning away.

"I did wonder why I could suddenly smell bacon on a heifer farm." She heard a soft snort behind her, imagined Shane looking at the ground around his feet. Maybe turning his eyes to her, eyebrows raised.

She shook the image away.

"Ya here to relieve me?" She turned back to him, he had one hand on his hip, looking down towards the camp.

"Yeah. Can you believe this shit?" Brandi shrugged.

"The guy?"

"Yeah the guy" She looked at the barn doors, now re secured with a fresh padlock. She wondered if there were people out there who would do the same to them, if they were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

"Dunno" she said finally, with a sigh "he was bleedin' out, woulda died."

"His friends pulled guns on them." Shane hissed at her, pointing down towards camp. "And there were more. They're gonna let him heal up and send him out with a fucking care package. And then what, Brandi, huh? He goes to get his friends, and he brings them back here." Brandi chewed her lip. Was that possible? She didn't know.

"He was blindfolded." Shane rolled his eyes and threw his free hand in the air.

"I thought I could rely on you to see some sense in this, Brandi." He shook his head "you're brainwashed by them" he pointed across to the group again. "You were the one who said I should leave, right? Kinda wishing I did." Brandi clenched her jaw to keep from yelling at him.

"Ya don't mean that. Ya not goin' anywhere n ya never were." She snorted softly "ya weren't gonna leave Lori n Carl, y'ain't gonna leave the baby. Ya lied to me Shane. None of it had nothin' to do with Rick." She turned her back on him, desperate to hide her face and hush her shaking voice. She folded her arms and watched as the others went about their morning ritual, now the sun was rising and the green edges of the sky were shifting to pale blues and pinks. Her family were getting up, starting a fire, stretching out sore backs and yawning away the night. She'd almost forgotten he was behind her when he spoke again, voice uncharacteristically soft.

"It was, Brandi." She felt his eyes burning into the back of her head. "It's always been about him. Don't you get it?" Brandi span to face him again, dust swirling up around her as she did so.

"She's havin' _your_ baby, Shane. That's what I get, that's what I see. Ya fucked 'er, n now she's havin' ya baby. As much as ya've been crazy these past few days, I know ya angry n ya hurt, but it ain't that kid's fault. Y'ain't gonna leave it, not if ya c'n help it." She didn't know why she felt so sad. She sighed gently and gave him a nod. "Thanks, for takin' over the watch. I gotta go." Shane was frowning at her, she knew even though she avoided looking at his face. She jogged away from the barn, Daryl catching her eye as she neared the collection of tents and vehicles that made their camp. His face was full of angry concern and she shook her head at him, she didn't want to talk.

She pulled herself into the RV and slammed the door, only for it to swing back on its feeble hinges again as Daryl stormed in after her.

"Don't even start, Daryl." Brandi collapsed, fully clothed, boots and all, face first onto the bed at the back of the vehicle.

"What he say to ya?" Daryl demanded to know, and Brandi just waved a hand at him, not looking up from the bed. Daryl stood next to her and stared her, clenching and unclenching his fists.

"I don't like ya jumpin' in ta take watches like that, Brand', not while everyone's sleepin' not over some fuckin' kid who ain't been properly vetted." Brandi lifted her head from the sheets and turned her face towards her brother.

"Vetted? He is blindfolded, he is gagged, And he is wearing a set of damn handcuffs." Her face was disbelieving. "I couldn't'a been safer, Daryl, stop bein' a dick about it" she planted her face into the softness of the comforter again. The lumpy, uneven bed felt like heaven.

"N Shane?" Daryl asked her "ya walk down here with a face like that after talkin' to him too damned often."

"Daryl, c'n ya stop?"

"Ya gettin' to like him." Brandi groaned into the mattress. "Y'are!" Daryl insisted "I see the way ya look at him, the way ya face is when he's with Lori.

"Shhh" Brandi hissed, suddenly getting up from the bed. "C'n ya leave it alone? I was jus' up there convincin' him to stay here with his baby."

"Convincin' him not to leave 'cause ya don't want him to" Brandi rolled her eyes. "I'm gonna have a talk with our new friend up there, find out what he's really about." The door to the RV slammed shut before Brandi could argue. Daryl was in no mood to have a 'chat' with anyone and she could see which way his anger would be angled.

"Goddammit" she whispered to herself, too shattered to chase him, not quite exhausted enough to not care.

She wished she didn't care. Perhaps it had turned out that, as soft and sweet as everyone thought Daryl was, - for a Dixon - maybe she was too. Recently feelings had been the one thing she'd tried to stay away from. That flutter in her chest, that pain in her gut and the lump in her throat.

She didn't know what was going on, or why she suddenly felt so much, and she had no time to work it out as her eyes drifted closed, and she fell asleep, fully clothed, face down on the bed that felt like heaven in a world that was starting to really feel like hell.


	22. Chapter 21

Brandi woke up around dinner time, with Sophia pushing gently on her shoulder.

"I brought you dinner." The little girl said proudly, gesturing to the little table where Brandi had had so many conversations recently, and where now a plate of salad and questionable tinned meat sat. She managed a small smile for the kid,

"Thanks Sophia" she said quietly.

"You missed all the excitement, surprised you slept trough it." Sophia perched her butt on the edge of the bed. Brandi sat up, suddenly realising she was still fully clothed and on top of the covers.

"Yeah?"

"Uh huh" Sophia nodded "Beth, Hershel's kid, she hurt herself in the bathroom. Broke a mirror." Brandi's eyes widened

"Really?" Sophia nodded again, completely nonplussed.

"Uh huh. Maggie was really upset, and blamed Lori for leaving her. There was a big argument." Brandi rubbed her eye and stretched her arms out over her head.

"Wow, I'm surprised I slept through it, too, then." She got up and headed for the table, picking up a cucumber slice and eating it in one bite. "Have you eaten?" She asked around her mouthful, and the kid nodded

"Yeah." She said simply. She sat opposite Brandi at the table and rested her head on her hands, elbows on the table. She watched Brandi eat for a moment, looking suitably bored. Brandi was wondering at the kids strength, or was it detachment, over her the loss of her mother. But when Sophia spoke again, and Brandi had to rethink that whole idea.

"Do you believe in God, and heaven, and stuff?" Brandi put the carrot she'd started gnawing on back on her plate, leaned forward and eyed Sophia very carefully.

"Do you?" She asked in place of responding her own view. Her own view was no, it was crap, but Sophia had lost her mom. Brandi was awful at these kinds of conversations. Daryl was the empathetic Dixon.

"I don't know." Sophia answered truthfully, leaning back in her seat and frowning. "I want to, especially since..." she trailed off, shook her head. "I just, with what's going on, the walkers, why would god do that?" Brandi didn't know. She pushed her plate away.

"Ya know, when we was lookin' for ya in the woods, we found a church, n ya ma went in n she prayed." Sophia's eyes widened a little, "n after that, not long after, we found ya. I found ya, hidin' in a cupboard." Brandi smiled "I dunno 'bout God, n I dunno 'bout heaven. What I do know is ya mom believed so hard that we would find ya, n we did." Sophia looked up from he hands, where she had suddenly focussed as Brandi spoke.

"What does that mean?" Brandi reached out and took one of Sophia's hands and gave it a gentle squeeze.

"That I guess there's somethin' more'n us n the walkers, kiddo." Sophia nodded, but she didn't look convinced. Brandi sat back and puffed air out of her mouth in a long stream. "I'm real sorry 'bout ya mama, kid. I lost mine when I was younger'n you are, I know how much it sucks. A'course, I had Daryl n sometimes Merle." Brandi stopped, she was rambling and reminding the poor kid that she had nothing left.

The door to the RV swung open, and Lori's face appeared.

"Oh, so you're awake." Brandi gave her a nod, "you not eating? You know now is not the time to start wasting food." Brandi felt her face crease up as she narrowed her eyes.

"I started, but somethin' came up. What d'ya want?" Lori rolled her eyes, stepping in to the small space which was already crowded with the two of them. She had a dish towel flung over her shoulder.

"I was coming to see if you were awake, if maybe you want to chip in around here a little." Brandi sighed loudly.

"What, laundry day, is it? Washing up to be done?" She couldn't help the sarcastic edge to her voice. "I was up all night guardin' the barn, if ya remember, spent half'a the day asleep afta keepin' y'all safe to sleep the night." Lori's jaw tensed and relaxed.

"There are men to do men's work. We have a duty to keep things running at camp."

"Still on that? Lori it ain't the fifties, n it ain't like y'old life no more. We c'n eat what we find and even wear the same drawers fora extra day. The walkers won't care when they're..." she stopped herself from being too graphic, Sophia trying to ignore their argument still sitting opposite Brandi. "they don't care!"

"Me and Maggie and Patricia are under a lot of pressure to keep things stable. To build some sort of normality for the men come home to.." Brandi snorted at that.

"Jesus, you don't get it do you? That life is over. It ain't comin' back."

"Beth almost died" Lori said quietly but aggressively "she... she needs looking after and there aren't enough hands." Brandi chewed her lip and gave Lori a shrug. That Beth girl meant nothing to her. Lori's face was a picture of disbelief.

"If, even once, ya'd said please, I might be willin' to help ya. But ya don't, ya never do. It's just expected that everyone will do what our First Lady says. Right?" Brandi stood up and barged passed the brunette, taking the RV steps in a single leap, hoping to find her brother, or just someone with some sense more than the stepford who had barged into her living space. She was seething, angry and tense.  
She almost expected Lori to have followed her, but was still put out to hear her voice behind her.

"Brandi." She turned, rolled her eyes, and folded her arms.

"What? What now?" She shrugged and shook her head "ain't it enough that ya got Rick back from the dead, that your son survived a gunshot against hideous odds, ain't it enough that Shane is devastatingly in love with ya, n that ya havin' yaself a kid? Ain't that enough? What more could you need? What more could ya possibly want, ya selfish, greedy, whore" She wasn't shouting. Her voice was calm and level. She wanted to cry but held off long enough to turn and storm away. She spoke out of turn, she didn't really feel Lori was a whore, who wouldn't want comfort if their husband had died? But Rick was back, and it was coming across as an inconvenience. Lori had no idea what she had, how lucky she was, and was acting like queen fucking bee at the same time.

Brandi realised she was heading for the barn, fists clenching and in clenching at her sides as she pounded her way over. She was so angry she wanted to hit something, instead she continued to march away.

Daryl came rolling out of the barn as she approached, almost jogging straight into her.

"Daryl?" She asked, noticing his knuckles dripping with blood, all rage falling away as concern took over. "What the hell happened in there?" Daryl barely looked bothered by his hand, looked at it and fisted it, making the blood run a little faster. He grabbed a rag from his back pocket and held it over his bloody digits. They were now walking away from the barn, nod Brandi grabbed his shoulder roughly. "Hey, what happened in there?" She asked him again, more shrilly, and he stopped walking, turning to her instead.

"We just talked, 'bout his people, what they do. If they come after him, we're dead, or as good as, n you, the rest'a the girls, ya'll wish ya were. I gotta talk to Rick." Brandi nodded and followed her brother back to the group, where plans were made to let the kid go, far away from the farm, where he couldn't lead anyone back.

Brandi listened to the hushed and harsh whispers of the group, sitting on the grass with Sophia next to her. Shane was convinced the boy should be shot, or hanged, or otherwise made to cease to exist, and arguments carried on into the moonlight, as Sophia lost her struggle with sleep.

Eventually Daryl picked the girl up and lay her in the big tent Lori and Rick were using, worried he'd wake her stepping up into the RV, through the narrow door. He took her place next to Brandi, and Brandi lay her her head on his shoulder with a sigh.

"Thanks" Daryl shook his head, it was nothing.

When Shane started rubbing his head, back and forth aggressively, Brandi was sure things were about to erupt.

"Tomorrow" Rick said, laying his hand on Shane's shoulder and calming him enough that the angry head rubbing stopped. Brandi was stunned, she was so sure fists were about to fly, but against all odds Shane bit his tongue instead of biting back. She narrowed her eyes as people started peeling off to go to bed. Shane caught he eye as he turned around. He gave her a shallow nod and a slight shrug. She felt her mouth twitch but curbed the smile before it spread too far.

"C'mon" she said to Daryl, "let's get some shut eye, sounds like a big day tomorrow." She looked back towards Shane, "goodnight." She told him.


	23. Chapter 23

"What in hell happened to you two?" It was late afternoon when Rick and Shane got back, both covered in blood and looking stern. Lori and Brandi-Lynn were both on them in an instant, Lori shooting a look over at Brandi as she dashed to Rick, Brandi taking Shane's jaw gently in her hand and studying his bloodied face.

"It's just a scrape," Shane said, pulling his head away from her touch, darting his eyes towards Lori and Rick. Brandi stepped back, puffing a little. She hadn't meant to get so excited at their return, and she made herself look and feel foolish. She shrank back, blended in with the group, Daryl, Tdog, Glenn and Hershel's older daughter Maggie, Sophia and carl.

"What happened?" Lori asked "what on earth happened with you two?" Rick huffed a sigh, Shane hooked his thumbs into his waistband. He looked at Rick.

"You gonna tell 'em, Brother, or should I?" Brandi wasn't the only one to notice the sarcasm dripping through Shane's voice. She frowned and cocked her head to one side, unaware that Daryl beside her was doing the same thing.

"He's in the car." Rick took in the whole group as he spoke. "Randall. We couldn't let him go." Lori's face was a picture, and Brandi-Lynn was not ashamed of taking pleasure out of that. The woman had been nothing but patronising with her, and in this new world Brandi would take her pleasure wherever she could find it.

"You brought him back? Here? With the kids and the girls?" T-dog's voice was unnaturally high pitched, and though Brandi disliked the way he referred to her, as if she couldn't look after herself, she let it slide. The guy had a point. Randall was part of a group of Rapists, it couldn't be allowed that he would stay with them.

"I have some thinking to do. A decision to make." Rick was saying. "But if you all don't mind I'd like to have some time to do just that. We'll reconvene in the morning." The group dispersed a minute later, all knowing what was on Rick's mind. He and Shane took the kid and placed him in an out building, far enough from camp to be deemed 'safe'  
Brandi was getting to despise that word. It didn't mean what it used to anymore.

She dropped her guard and offered to help Lori cook that evening, Sophia clinging to her leg like a limpet, with Maggie and Patricia there too, all in the Greene's kitchen like a family Sunday.

Not that she knew what that was like.

Lori had seemed surprised but did her best to hide it. Even Daryl had looked over with wide eyes.

"I wanna help, 'k? Ain't no need to go catchin' damn flies over it."  
They ate chicken and vegetables, home baked rolls and drank lemonade. But all the while there was an over shadowing. A darkness cast by Rick's unspoken decision.

The kid was going to die, Brandi knew it. She picked at the chicken bones on her plate, wondering if that might not be the best thing to do, and thanking her stars it wasn't her decision to make.  
Kill a man, a boy really, could she?

"He threatened us." Daryl said to her in the RV later that night. She hadn't said a thing out loud, her thoughts tucked away safely in her head, sick of the fighting and arguing. Still Daryl knew what she was thinking, like he always did.

They snuggled together in the RV bed, like they always used to back home, topping and tailing and knowing they probably wouldn't get much sleep.

"Threatened me, you, the kids. Can't have that Brand', never would'a before, ain't gonna let it go now neither." Brandi sighed and rolled onto her side so she could see her twin better.

"A hundred people've threatened me, n I bet every one of 'em was still alive when the world fell down. Why's this different to them?" Daryl shrugged his shoulders slightly, shook his head as he did so, fiddling with his hands as he tended to do whenever he had 'feelings'.

"Cause I think this guy means it. Cause the world went shit, n everyone's gotta sense of entitlement now. People like that, jus' harmless and mouthy before, but now? Now they got guns, n they got back up of twen'y people with the same attitude. World ain't what it was no more, c'mon girl, you know that." She thought about that for a long while. She thought about that kid and if he might have family, she thought about Shane and the weird way he was affecting her, what he'd said about Lori and Carl and Rick and if any of it was true. It was clear the two men had fought, like testosterone addled teenagers. Maybe it was a power struggle, maybe she'd got Shane all wrong again.

"Daryl?" She whispered, not wanting to wake Sophia who had curled up on blankets on the floor, nudging his shin with her elbow, unsure if he would have fallen asleep already. But he grunted in reply and that was enough for her to continue. "Ain't jus' walkers anymore, is it?" He mumbled something then turned his head so she could hear him more clearly.

"It never was jus' them." He sounded sleep addled, but she had more to say.

"If anythin' ever happens, y'ain't gonna let me suffer, right?" Daryl scoffed.

"Shut up, stupid." Brandi smiled to herself, but it needed to be said, they needed to be clear where they stood.

"I mean it Dare, I don't win a be one a them things." Silence echoed back to her, but after a moment Daryl sat up.

"Ain't gonna happen, Brand' they ain't gonna get ya, I promise. I'll be with ya, n I'll make sure a that. Walkers, people, ain't nothin' gonna come get ya while I'm around."

* * *

 

They ate breakfast in a thick silence in the morning, the air loaded and heavy with all that wasn't being said. Brandi pushed the last of her eggs around her plate, no longer hungry under tension. She looked around the their small camp, and noticed most people were doing the same. She at least expected something from Shane, some outburst or another.

"What's the story?" She asked when no one else did, sick of the feeling bearing heavy on her shoulders. "Ya make a decision or ya still sittin' on ya damn hands?"

"Watch your language" Lori hissed, but Brandi shrugged her shoulders.

"A kid's life's hangin' in the balance, I think that deserves a couple curse words." Daryl rolled his eyes at her and she glared at him "what? Ya don't think so?" She turned to Rick, still sitting with his plate in one hand and a fork in the other "What's the plan, Rick?" Daryl bumped her leg with his and she looked at her brother. He raised an eyebrow at her. She shook her head at him.  "I ain't bothered either way, but the tension here is making me sick. Do it, don't do it," she turned back to Rick, Shane beside him frowning. "Ya wanted the night, ya had it. We deserve to know where ya at." Rick lowered his head and gave a deep sigh, he looked at Lori, standing with her arms loosely folded waiting for an answer. Shane rubbed his head, and Brandi knew he expected Rick to say he wouldn't do it, he thought Rick was weak, not capable. She thought again about what he'd said about the start, and what she'd heard him say to Lori the night the kid showed up. She didn't know what to believe about him anymore.

"I don't see any other way." Rick said quietly. "He's a threat, we have to do it. I'll do it. Tonight." There was a collective silence, a joint held breath in the small group who stood in camp. Brandi looked at Shane, who seemed satisfied but confused, his thumbs tucked into his waist and once more.

"That's it?" Glenn asked, "that's it?! You made a choice and we have no... no discussion?"

"I don't see any other option here." Rick said with finality. "End of discussion." Rick slammed his plate on to the dirt and stormed away from camp, so visibly tense and upset, even Lori didn't go after him.

"Is that what ya wanted?" Daryl asked Brandi, and she shrugged her shoulders at him, making a noise that sounded like 'I don't know'. She looked at the dust left in Rick's wake, and caught Loris eye. She seemed thoroughly pissed, too. Brandi worried if she could ever get in that woman's right side. She huffed a little sigh and placed her plate on the ground.

"Well, if it's gonna be a whole day, should we keep watches on 'im?" No one answered, the group suddenly mute, so she got up, grabbed the handgun she hated so much, and headed to the outbuilding where Randall was being kept.

What else could she do? She didn't want to think about what was going to happen to him, though it felt wrong it was probably right. He could get out at any point if they tried to integrate him, run back to his friends and bring them back to the farm. she didn't want people like that around Sophia.

The thought surprised her. Sure they'd bonded, over both Sophia being found and looking for her mother, but Brandi-Lynn had never thought of anyone as hers to look out for. Even her brothers, who she knew could look after themselves.

"Daryl's going nuts because you're out here." She startled and turned to Shane. She nodded

"I figured he might."

"You here for Glenn?" Brandi narrowed her eyes

"I'm here to make sure he doesn't get out." Shane smirked a little, crouched down in the dirt.

"Girl, He is cuffed, and locked in" Brandi nodded again.

"Sure is, he's also frightened n desperate. Don't tell me ya wouldn't try n find a way out in that situation." It was Shane's turn to nods, raising his eyebrows at her in agreement. "Damn right ya would." She said, rolling her shoulders and sticking out her chest in victory. Shane's eyes ran down her body, and again, she took pleasure wherever she could get it. She didn't chastise him for looking at her that way. She turned her head and looked away, knowing he'd drink her body in a little more of she wasn't looking.

Fuck it, she liked being looked at, and no matter what Shane was or wasn't doing with Lori and Rick, no matter whether he loved Lori or not, she could enjoy being appreciated aesthetically.

She'd been led to believe her whole life that there was nothing else going for her. 

"But you're here because of what Glenn said?" Brandi turned back to Shane, shook her head gently with a disbelieving smile.

"No. I'm here because he needs to be covered. I don't give no shit what y'all do to him, but I give a shit 'bout the crew, 'bout us." Shane nodded, accepting what she was saying. He dipped his head and looked up at her under his brow, and she wondered if he knew what that look did to her insides. Turning her stomach and sending quivers through her chest.

Perhaps he did. God, perhaps the whole thing was a game to him. She cleared her throat and tore her eyes from his.

"Say I wanna go in there, right now" Shane asked. "and I wanna take care of this, you gonna stop me?" Brandi thought she had explained clearly, obviously not. She lifted her arms to her sides, exasperated

"I'm with you on this." Shane rolled his head as if to stretch his neck. He made a noise in the back of his throat, a hum that said he wasn't so sure.

"These guys aren't going to go through with this" Brandi raised her eyebrows, folded her arms "I'm telling you they're gonna pussy out and I'm gonna have a big problem on my hands" Brandi didn't believe that. She frowned

"Rick seemed pretty sure"

"Let me ask you something, everytime we have a problem around here who do you think is behind it?" It was a strange turn for the conversation. Certainly Rick wasn't the problem. He had his head screwed on nice and tight, Shane on the other hand. She licked her dry lips and watched his eyes dart to her mouth,

"Some would say you" she said carefully.

"No one 'round here listens to me" Shane looked around himself, contemplating. Brandi watched him quietly for a moment until he got up to leave. She took a breath, and he turned to her, expecting her to speak.

"I'm listenin'," she said, pushing her blonde, oily, bangs back over her head and out of her face, conscious of what lifting her arms up did to her body. She couldn't help it, she sold her self with her body, and nothing else. She wanted to keep Shane on side, there was only one way she knew how.


	24. Chapter 24

"I just wanna know what it's like not to sleep with one eye open." Shane had approached her, and was close enough for her to see the pulse in his neck. Her mouth parted slightly and she thought about having those big plump lips on hers, but a sudden noise from the out building had Shane turning on his heel, throwing the doors open, storming in with his gun up.

"What did you say to him?" Carl was in there, Brandi wondered how the hell... but there was no time, Shane was about to blow Randall's face right off his head. "I will shoot you, right here, right now! You not talking? open your mouth" Shane was yelling, Brandi took hold of Carl and held him behind her.

"Shane! Not now!" She tried, but he wasn't listening, yelling at the poor kid, his gun pushed against the boy's mouth. "Shane!" She tried again, pushing Carl a little farther back and launching herself forward, grabbing Shane's arm and pulling it back. He tried to shake her off, eyes wide and crazed, and he wasn't looking what he was doing. He shook her again, elbowing her, hard, in the face, sending her splaying on her ass on the floor.

She tasted blood. Her lip had split as he mashed it against her teeth with his boney ass elbow.

"Fuck!" She hissed. Daryl was going to go crazy. She'd have to make something up, even though he could practically read her mind he'd take her at her word. He wouldn't like it, but he liked fighting and shouting even less.  
"Shane!" Carl yelled, heading towards Brandi and putting an arm around her.

"Look what you did!" Shane started yelling at Randall again, and Brandi just wanted it to stop, all of it. The shouting the arguing, it was just like home. Daryl and Will at it like cat and dog, Merle butting in and getting his ass kicked for the pleasure, Merle storming out as Daryl was beaten black and blue because Merle had stormed off, Will taking her off to one side after she'd made dinner, Daryl having gone to their room, and making her pay for the whole damn thing. She hated arguing, too.

"Ya gonna do it anyway" she said loudly, not seeing the kid anymore but her daddy's ugly face instead. "Jus' fuckin' end this!" Carl looked at her stunned.

"But my dad..."

"Jus' do it Shane, jus' make it stop already!" Shane looked at her, wide eyed, as the boy started shaking his head, mumbling

"No no no please, nononono"

"Yes ma'am." Shane said quietly, turning and shooting Randall in the face as Brandi hugged Carl into her chest so he wouldn't see.  
She sobbed into the top of his head, wanting to take everything back, as the rest of the group thundered towards the building like a herd of cattle.

"What the hell?" She looked up at Daryl's voice, and he stood in the doorway like a damn superhero. She went to stand, Carl running for his mother as she also appeared.

She darted into Daryl's chest, finding comfort in the familiarity as he hesitated slightly before wrapping his arms around her. He'd never been comfortable with her crying. She did it so rarely, always managing to hold it together, even in the face of the most horrific torture by their father.

Not today, she was not strong today.

She sobbed into his chest as he held her tight, making soothing noises before asking again.  
"What in hell happened in here?"

"Shane!" Brandi startled at Rick's sharp rough shout, causing Daryl to rub at her shoulder and hush her, but she pulled away from him, having irritated herself. She wiped her nose on her sleeve and looked around at the others, not straying too far from her brother's side. A small hand curled into hers. Sophia.

"What the hell is this?!" Rick continued, storming up to Shane.

"He... he..." Shane stuttered,

"I had this under control!" Rick hissed, ignoring everyone else, Carl sobbing, Lori scowling, Glenn just open mouthed, T-dog had his hands on top of his head, swaying on his feet, quiet expletives coming from his clenched teeth. Rick was glaring at Shane, expecting some explanation, and Shane just stared right back, at a loss.

"He attacked me." Brandi said quietly, Shane and Rick's eyes shooting to her. She looked at Shane, realising he was unsure if she meant him. He was in some kind of shock. She shook her head at him slightly. "Randall" she reiterated, showing Rick her swollen lip. "I... I was curious" she decided she shouldn't turn Carl in, she made this shit happen. "I got too close, he head butted me. Shane did the right thing. He.. he helped me." She wondered why she was covering for him. Rick looked fit to tear him a new asshole, even without hearing the truth.

Daryl grabbed her shoulder and span her around, checking out her face with two fingers gently holding her chin.

"Fat lip's the best ya c'n hope for afta bein' so stupid." He chastised gently, eyes narrow and clearly bit believing a word. Brandi pulled her face from his touch. "What were ya thinkin'?"

"She weren't" Shane said, "look" he addressed Rick "he was gonna... we was gonna kill him anyway, right? Now you ain't gotta do it, ok? I had to, I had to do something."

"In front of my boy?" He pointed towards Carl without turning "It couldn't have waited?" Shane opened and closed his mouth.

"I'm sorry, man, brother, I'm sorry. I didn't know carl was there. What was I gonna do?" Rick started walking away, furious. "Just let him attack one of us with no comeback? No consequence? He attacked one of our people, man!" Rick didn't reply, just stomped off into the morning. Shane watched him a moment, and Brandi wondered how they we're going to clear this particular mess up. There was blood splatter and god knew what all else all over.

"How could you?" Lori hissed at Shane, as if everyone had left them two alone. "After everything we've been through, everything you kept us safe from, you do this in front of Carl? I'm done, Shane. I'm done." She stomped off, Carl's hand in hers as she dragged him along, following Rick back to their camp.

"C'mon" Daryl said, throwing Shane a dirty look and trying to move Brandi and Sophia away. "Let's get outta here." But Brandi shook her head, looking at Shane who seemed despondent. She didn't know he if he was more upset by Rick, or by Lori. She put Sophia's hand in Daryl's.

"C'n I have justa minute?" She asked, and Daryl looked like he might argue. "I'll be right over, Dare, please." He gave her a shallow nod, and turned with Sophia to walk away.

"Y'ain't back in ten minutes i'ma come back n get ya" he said as they left hand in hand. T-Dog and Glenn had gone without a word, and Shane and Brandi were left with Randall's body.

Shane ran a hand over his head and down his face. Brandi folded her arms under her chest and blew a puff of air from her mouth. She didn't know what she meant to say. Sorry? Thank you?

"I'm sorry" Shane said, startling her a little. He took her face gently in his hand looked her swollen lip over. "It ain't so bad." He added after appraising it a moment. Brandi pulled her head away and he snorted softly. "I guess thanks are in order, right? You didn't have to lie for me" Brandi chuckled at that.

"Ya were flappin' ya jaw like a fish outta water. I had to do somethin'" she sniffed and nodded down at Randall's body. "He hadta die, right? Someone hadta do it. Ya got ya way, I guess."

"This weren't what I wanted, believe me. Everyone sees me in this bad light." He sighed "I'm not completely heartless." Brandi looked at him carefully. He looked lost, like a kid. His girlfriend and his best friend had just dumped him all in five minutes flat. She could understand the hurt she saw in his eyes. She didn't like it, knowing it was probably Lori that had finally broken through to his softer side. At least there was evidence he had a softer side. She sighed again, feeling like she wasn't getting enough air.

"I'm sorry." She said, not sure what for, but feeling it anyway. "About... all a this." She looked at the floor "I know Lori is jus' about breakin' ya heart out here. Can't be easy." She chanced a look up and Shane was scowling at her. She frowned.

"Lori? Lori ain't what's hurting, Brandi." He sighed and rubbed his head "I explained that to you, I told you it was all for Rick." He rubbed both hands down his face. "Now he hates me. It's my fault, but it is not what I wanted." Brandi narrowed her eyes a little more, her eyebrows almost touching as her brow furrowed hard. That was not what she had expected him to say, at all.

"What happened, then, out there, when you were supposed to be dropping the kid 18 miles out?" He sighed heavily, like he was drained, chances were he was, this whole morning had not been easy for any of them.

"We fought. Rick thinks it's cause of Lori, shit everyone does. You do." He paused and looked at her under his brow again, sending her chest and stomach all aflutter. "Ain't about that. I was frustrated and he wasn't listening to me. He still thinks it's about Lori. But I told you, I ain't heartless. I know I'm not in love with her. I love her but it was never about that." Brandi looked at the floor so she wouldn't have to look at his eyes. Big, brown, and melting.

She couldn't be put off guard by them as he was being so serious. Her simple apology turning into a heart to heart, again. She toyed with her sore lip with her tongue, enjoying the sharp pain she felt, which brought her strangely into focus.

"So what was it about?" She managed to ask without looking at him.

"He laid into me about Lori and Carl, and that baby." He sighed "saying they were his. _His_. I know they're his. The baby, that... I guess it could be mine." Brandi looked up and he shrugged. "Could be, right? But he was laying into me like I was trying to steal them. He wouldn't hear me, wouldn't listen! Not like you did. You believe me, right?" Brandi didn't answer, she found she couldn't. "Brandi? You believe me. This ain't about Lori it was always about him. I need him back. I need him back." Brandi crossed her arms and rubbed her biceps, nodding.

"Yeah. Yeah I believe you." Shane smiled a little, "I have to get back." She put her hands in her pockets, shrugged her shoulders, feeling awkward. She did believe him. He'd said it twice now, that everything he had done for Lori was truly for Rick, and perhaps his bad decisions were just poor judgement due to, what, trying to prove something? "Daryl will come looking." She finished, slowly turning away.

"Brandi." Shane called, and she stopped, not turning back. "It ain't Lori. I... I need you to know." She nodded to herself, and continued on her way back to camp.


	25. Chapter 25

Brandi was exhausted. She threw herself back on the bed in the RV which had somehow become her home in the last few days. She put her arm over her face, trying to keep the light out of her eyes. Again Shane had told her Lori was a mistake, and that he had wanted to be close to Rick. Even rick wasn't buying it, and she still didn't know how she felt. It was completely at odds to what Lori seemed to think. Could she be pitting her men against each other? Her back _was_ against the wall, what with the baby, and not knowing who the daddy was.

Brandi thought the crazy bitch was playing with fire on that one. Someone would end up getting very hurt, and if Lori wasn't careful it would be her.

She heard the door open, and she groaned.

"If y'ain't gotta bottle a Jim beam I ain't interested." She said to the roof, not even looking to see who it was. She heard a soft snort.

"Bourbon? Afta what Shane said?" Brandi dropped her arm and looked across at Daryl, standing at the doorway.

"Don' start." She tried, and he shook his head.

"How'd ya get the fat lip, Brand'?" He stepped forward, and she saw his eyes were narrow and suspicious. She sighed and sat up.

"Don't." She said again, not wanting to have to go through it all. All she saw when she closed her eyes was the blood splatter, without talking it all out again, how scared she felt, how she saw daddy's face in place of Randall's. She almost laughed, now he had no face at all. "I don't wanna fight ya Daryl, not you. Everyone else c'n tear each other up, for all I care, but I can't be fightin' with you, too." He didn't answer, but walked in farther and sat on the edge of the bed with his back to her.

"So it weren't the kid."

"It don't matter." She said bitterly, throwing herself back again and cursing herself for literally confirming everything he was thinking with three small words. She threw her arm across her face again and groaned once more.

"Hershel wants us all to move into the farmhouse, for the winter." Thankfully Daryl changed the subject. She looked up at the back of his head.

"He's changed his tune" she said, knowing Hershel had changed his mind the moment Shane laid bullets into a walker and she kept on struggling. "Even Shane?" She wondered aloud, and Daryl scoffed a short sharp laugh.

"Yeah, even that prick." He fell back so his head landed heavily on her stomach and she clicked her tongue at him. "Gotta get the kid's body burned" he said, "can't leave it to rot where it is." Brandi nodded, shoving Daryl off so she could get up. She'd do it, or at least help, shit she got him killed in the first place. She blew out a puff of air that felt trapped in her chest.

"I'll get Shane, we'll drive him to the far reaches of the farm and burn him. Ain't no point waitin'." Daryl got up next to her and looked at her very closely.

"I'll go with ya." Brandi sighed. She wanted to talk to Shane, but she didn't want to fight her twin.

"A'ight. We'll let the others know n we'll take 'im in the truck."

* * *

 

They stood in the doorway of the outbuilding, glaring at the blood splatter on the floor.

"What the fuck is this!?" Daryl yelled, darting forward with his crossbow held up to his eye, as if he thought Randall could have got up and hid himself in the shadows. Brandi tried to make sense of it all.

"Maybe someone cleared 'im out already. T, or Shane?" Daryl backed up to her again.

"Nah, I tol' Rick we were comin', he'd a said if Randall was already gone." Brandi frowned and looked again at the blood stain, drying into the dust on the ground.

"Wait." She stepped forward and crouched low to the floor. Something had caught her eye. A foot print laid in blood. "Daryl, whose boot is that?" She was glad her brother was with her, the better tracker of the family. She looked up at him as he stepped into the shadows with her and crouched down to get a better look. She watched his face as he frowned, confusion clear his eyes.

"Looks like the kid's" He said, as if he couldn't believe his eyes, rubbing the print gently with his fingers. "It's kinda smeared, like he was stumblin'" Brandi scoffed a little.

"I should think so, he was shot at close range in the face." Daryl contemplated the print a little more, a grunt escaping him, then looked at the door.

"Shane lock that when he left?" Brandi shrugged. She'd left him behind her. Who knew what he did when he left.

"Prolly not if he thought the kid was dead. What was he, passed out?" Daryl shook his head and shrugged his shoulders.

"Fucked if I know. I thought he was dead." He stood up and approached his sister "sonovva bitch shouldn't a been gettin' up at all." They looked at each other a moment, then both headed for the door without a word, an unspoken agreement between them that they should let someone know, get more input on the crazy shit that was going on here.

* * *

 

The whole group stood around the door to the small shed-like building. Rick was squaring up to Shane, asking him where in the world the kid was, and Shane was yelling right back that he didn't know, why would he know?

Brandi tried to block it out, more yelling, more arguing, it was getting to. E a foul habit. Sophia was with her, hand curled tightly in hers. Then they were calling her name.

"Brandi, go with Daryl and Glenn," she looked at the pair of them, and Daryl explained.

"Gotta find the kid, Brand', c'mon we're heading to the woods." So she followed, only half knowing what was happening. She turned back, saw Shane and Rick heading in the opposite direction, not exactly looking friendly. She chewed her lip, unsure of the look in Rick's eyes, but Daryl whistled through his teeth at her, and she had to turn away.

*****

"Ain't nothin' out here" Daryl said some time later, as he and Glenn almost bumped into each other. Brandi looked at the ground as Glenn tripped over himself, frightened by the dark and the unknown whereabouts of Randall.

"He ain't here" Brandi said, studying a scuff in the dirt, some leaves. "Fall's comin' fast" she said, kicking at the yellowed leaves and looking up to find a walker heading for her "Holy fuck" she yelled, dragging her bow to front and trying to load up an arrow in a panic.

But it wouldn't stay seated, the nick wobbling all over the damn place. The walker kept coming and god dammit she was gonna do this if it killed her. 

"Daryl? Glenn? We got comp'ny" the walker stumbled forward and she saw it had next to no face. "Oh hell no." She almost dropped her bow in shock as she realised, it was him. Randall.

She glared at the walking corpse, wondering how a walker got in, how... how he got bit. She took a breath and pulled her bow up again, loading an arrow successfully and shooting Randall in what was left of his forehead.

He crumpled to the floor with a soft flump and then, finally, Glenn and Daryl showed up.

"Where the fuck was ya!?" She punched Daryl's arm as hard as she could with shaking fist, her heart was beating a million miles and hour in her chest and sweat stood out on her skin. She punched Daryl again.

"Stop, we're here, ok?" She nodded towards the walker

"It's Randall." She said, and Daryl ran to the corpses side to look him over.

"How'd he get bit?" Glenn asked, and Brandi shook her head. "Do we have walkers? Are they on the farm?" He was starting to panic, but Daryl beckoned them over to him.

"Ain't a mark on 'im, 'cept the obvious. Look" he turned Randall's head to one side "severed his jugular, missed the brain stem. He died from blood loss." Brandi frowned, confused.

"That doesn't make sense" she said, finally starting to calm. He hadn't been bit, there were no scratches, but it wasn't Randall that had come falling out of the dark to rip her face off.

"Nah" Daryl said "it don't. Come on, let's get back, let th'others know"

* * *

 

Brandi looked at the blank faces staring back at them as they entered he house.

"They ain't here?" Daryl asked Lori, and she shook her head. "We heard a gunshot" he added. "N we found Randall. He was a walker but there weren't no bites. Not a mark on him," Lori put her hands to her mouth,

"Please, Daryl, please go and get Shane and Rick. We'll get them back in and we'll sort this out together." Brandi was about to argue, if they were shooting there was more than a single walker, and Daryl was not going back out there, thank you very much, but Daryl nodded.

"Yes ma'am" he said, and headed back onto the porch, bypassing Brandi with barely a sideways glance.

"Brandi?" She looked up from the floor, and saw Sophia on the stairs rubbing her eyes. Brandi mock scowled

"Why ain't ya in bed?" She asked, heading for the stairs as Sophia headed down.

"I heard a shot, where'd Carl go?" Lori span on her heel.

"What did you say?" She asked the girl, Sophia shrugged sleepily.

"I woke up and he was gone." Brandi and Lori looked at each other, Lori's face panic stricken.

"Hey!" Daryl called back to the group in the house from the porch. "Ya wanna take a look at this."

The group crowded on the porch, and Daryl waved his arm across the scenery before them. Brandi's breath caught in her throat as she saw what Daryl was indicating.

A herd, more than that, a swarm of walkers were marching like an army across the fields.  Like a cloud they blocked out the view, and moans and grunts drifted across to them even from so far.

She stared at them, unable to speak, unable to move. She felt Sophia wrap her small hand in hers, and she squeezed it as tight as she dare.

"What.. what.. I have to find Carl, I need to find Carl!"

"Do we just go inside?" Hershel's youngest asked, but Daryl shot her down as Brandi put a hand on Lori's shoulder. Comforting, but urgent.

"C'mon" she said quietly, "We'll look for him, we'll find him."

"Rick n Shane are out there" she hissed at Daryl, as Lori walked back in the house. Daryl looked out at the horde again, nodded towards it.

"What ya want me to do Brand'?" She shook her head sadly and looked out at the walkers too. One gunshot. There had been no more.

Had Lori finally won, had one of her men shot the other?

She didn't know.

She'd probably never find out.


	26. Chapter 26

Brandi pressed her back against the chicken coop, wondering if this was it.

The end.

7, 8 walkers were honing in on her, and she knew she only had a few bullets left. Walkers littered the floor around her, each with an arrow sticking out of its head. She'd done her best. She'd done what she could, and now?

Maybe she could save a bullet for herself.

She hitched a shaking breath and shot the closest walker in the face. Maybe she could create a pathway, head out to the woods.  
She couldn't hear the cars anymore, or Hershel's shot gun fire. She looked around again, more were noticing her, more were coming. She grunted quietly to herself. How could they leave her? How could Daryl dare to leave her here, alone, with nothing but a handful of bullets?

She scrubbed at her cheeks, ignoring the pain from her broken cheekbone as she frustratedly tried to get the tears off her face. She was angry at herself for crying, she wasn't weak.

"I'm not gonna die here!" She yelled at the assholes that slowly bore down on her.

She thought about Merle, about Daryl, daddy and mama. A dog they had, Blue, a mutt that one day just went missing. A feral cat she tried to tame she'd called Stan, who scratched her arm to shit when she tried to pet it. Her life didn't flash before her eyes, but a few choice memories did.

She held up her gun and went to shoot another walker who got too close, but it fell before she pulled the trigger. Stunned she almost dropped her gun to her side, but used both arms to keep it up at eye level and almost steady.

She couldn't believe her eyes.

Didn't believe it at first.

"Shane?" He nodded, staggered forward holding his side. Her first thought was that he was bit, but she ignored that, it was a familiar face amongst the walkers, so she ran forward to him, dodging geeks as she went.

"Brandi, what happened? Where..." he grimaced and hissed through his teeth "ugh, where is everyone?" She shook her head.

"No time." She breathed. "C'mon." She folded her arm around his waist, and dragged him forward, finding a new lease of life now she had Shane with her. No longer thinking she needed to save a bullet for herself, maybe she'd have to save one for him. Maybe.

She didn't know, this was a mess.

"Into the woods, the trees." She said hastily, trying to drag him along as he dragged his ass. "We gotta move," she hissed, chancing a backward glance at the walkers creeping up on them. Shane tried to hop along a little faster, but he was soon wheezing heavily and slowing down.  "Shane?" She tried and he nodded.

"Bastard stabbed me. Wait." He turned his head away from her and about coughed his guts up, spitting blood into the grass and worrying her senseless.

"Who stabbed ya?" She asked as he settled into his hopping staggering stride again. She checked around them, shooting a walker that got too close for comfort.

"Rick, he's gone, man, he's gone crazy." Brandi tried to get her head around that, but couldn't, there was too much going on around them for her to think about anything other than getting away.

"Later." She said "c'mon, ain't far now." She looked up, a hundred feet, maybe more. She didn't know if he'd make it, and then what? They'd just be stuck in the trees with the herd behind them.   
She ignored those thoughts, and pushed them both forward a little faster.

*****

To Brandi's delight the woods were thinner on walkers than she suspected.

"They must've all jus' headed for the house." She mused to herself, Shane all but comatose under her arm.

"I gotta, I gotta stop. I gotta stop" Shane cut himself off with more heavy, wheezing coughs, and Brandi leant him against a large tree trunk. She looked around, walkers were shuffling past but not taking much notice.

They would, the two living souls would attract one's attention and then they'd all turn to them, like there was some connection between walkers when it came to possible food. Mob mentality or some shit.

"What the Hell happened, Shane?" Shane looked at her properly for the first time since they'd found each other. He grimaced and straightened a little. He went to speak, but Brandi heard a groan behind her. She grabbed one of her few remaining arrows and turned to stab the creature in the head. She pulled her arrow out and kicked the bastard away, frustrated, fed up with them, they needed a break in the crowd to get to safety, but she couldn't see one. 

"C'mon," she said to Shane, taking his hand, "I know ya fucked up, but we gotta move." She dragged him forward and he pushed himself off the tree. "Daryl, Rick, they woulda headed to the highway, Hershel could be there, he c'n help ya." Shane abruptly pulled her hand from his and did his best to straighten up.

"I ain't going where he is." He spat aggressively "he fucking stabbed me." Brandi rolled her eyes. They didn't have time for this, he couldn't afford to be so angry right now. He could be angry later.

"We could die out here!" She yelled at him "ya fucked his wife n got her pregnant, how would you feel th'other way round? I ain't tryina die today. So fuckin' move ya ass!" She grabbed him again, and pushed him forward, towards where she expected the highway to be.

*****

Brandi and Shane leaned against the car they'd left food on for Sophia when she was lost.

Sophia.

Brandi hoped she made it, maybe with Lori, perhaps with Daryl. Brandi held both hands to her face, looking up and down the highway like someone might appear.

"They left." She croaked, over and over again, like she couldn't believe they would do that. It crossed her mind they may have gone back, but with so many walkers it was doubtful. Too dangerous. She couldn't deny it would have been a stupid move to return so soon.

Maybe they'd come back later, or another day. Maybe they should hang around close by, just in case.

"They weren't ever here" Shane wheezed out, and she turned to him sharply.

"What?" She asked, angry suddenly "ya don't recognise Otis' truck? Ya should, ya drove it back all by ya self." She folded her arms and turned back to the highway. "They were here." She said softly "but somethin' made 'em move on."

"Selfishness" Shane said, and Brandi hugged herself a little tighter.

"Shut up." She whispered at him.

"Rick left me for dead, Brandi. My own best friend left me for dead." Shane started coughing again and she felt bad for him. She hoped he hadn't punctured a lung. How would they even fix that?

"Maybe it was a mistake." She offered but he shook his head, coughing dying down.

"He told me I couldn't fuck his wife and have his kids call me daddy." Brandi smirked at him, despite all the shit they were in right then.

"What brought that on?" She wondered aloud, knowing Shane had to have poked the bear some way or another, Rick wasn't the type to just snap for no reason.  
Lori came to her mind again, though. Had she forced them into this fight? The love of a good woman could do that.

She must have been dynamite in bed.

"He said, I moved Randall to get him out there alone. I tried to deny it, he wouldn't hear it. Thought I was fixing to kill him. I weren't. I am now, asshole." Shane bent at the waist and started his hacking cough again, Brandi watched him, concern returning for his wellbeing. She couldn't do this alone, she was sure of it, she'd die alone and she didn't want that, not for herself, or anyone else in their family.   
That's what they were, family, all of them, and she was sure Shane would see that, if she could just get him thinking with his head and not his stabbed up guts.

That was unfair, she was pretty angry at Daryl for leaving her, she'd be incensed if he'd hurt her first.

Her thoughts fell to Merle, and how he must have felt.  
She was sorry, now, and it was probably too late. Shit if he was still alive, someone out there was struggling worse than them. She smiled to herself as Shane finally stopped again.

"Look, we'll get in one a them cars, a'ight? We'll search for a first aid kit and then Get the hell outta here" she nodded behind him at a lone walker stumbling towards them. She shot it with her bow and watched it fall. "Creepers're creepin, Shane, we need to patch you up and get the fuck out." Shane wheezed a breath and straightened to look at her.

"And go where, Brandi? Everyone we know is dead, everyone we thought was on our side left us both for dead." Brandi thought about that. She didn't believe it, Daryl would never leave her on purpose, and if he was dead, she'd know. Without a doubt. Not so much Merle, who knew about him? But Daryl... she'd feel it, deep inside. They shared a uterus, they shared a childhood, a bedroom, often times a bed. He always knew when something was up with her, and Brandi likewise. She'd know. She had to.

"What about givin' fort bennin' a go?" Shane tried a laugh, but coughed instead.

"You changed your mind?" He managed after his fit. Brandi shrugged. It was the first thing that came to her head, and having a goal was better than wandering around like lost sheep.

She pushed off from the car and headed for the snarled up traffic of abandoned vehicles.

"Stay there," she called "I'll be right back to stitch y'up."

She ignored Otis' truck, the rate people had left the farm she knew there'd be nothing of use. Instead she headed for a station wagon, packed to the roof with cases and other shit, like someone thought this would be a little vacation, couple weeks in Atlanta then heading back home when the walkers were exterminated.

She huffed a bitter laugh under her breath, and tapped on the car's windows. There was no return, so she pulled the door open and started rifling for anything which might be of use.

This is it, she thought, dumping the contents of a backpack on the passenger seat, throwing the pack over her shoulder and grabbing a couple of maps that had fallen out amongst candy wrappers and empty juice bottles. This is life now, again, I suppose.


	27. Chapter 27

They stood side by side next to the truck Brandi had decided had the most fuel from the highway. Shane held onto it like he might collapse without something to steady himself on. Brandi ignored him for the time being. He was doing alright all things considered, all the miles they'd covered.  
She looked back at the sign before them,

"Fort Benning. Home of the infantry"

And the fences, all still standing and covered in barbed wire, difficult to see in the dark but she knew it was there.

The most disheartening thing was the army of walkers clawing at the fences since they'd pulled up.

Sure, Brandi knew it would be a no go, had to finally prove to Shane that all his hopes shouldn't be set on the place.

Still, it had been a goal, something to aim for, and now there was nothing again and she had no idea where they would go next, where they could possibly try. The truck was almost out of gas, and Shane was in no state to walk. She'd stitched him up with a travel sowing kit, but she doubted it was enough.

God she even thought they might catch a break and be able to infiltrate a hospital or even a FEMA camp but there had been nothing, and now all her hopes had been pinned on a fallen fort, on walkers with guns.

"You were right." Shane wheezed with great effort, and she about fell down in shock.

"Y'admittin' that, out in the open? Jesus Christ I knew ya was sufferin' din't know ya had a fever." Shane narrowed his eyes at her.

"Shut your mouth. What now?" Walkers moaned and reached through the chain link at them, ripping off their own skin trying so hard to get a meal. Brandi watched them a moment, stretching fingers and flexing their jaws. Their grey and peeling skin shone ethereal in the moonlight, waxy and stinking. She tried to ignore that they were once civilians, soldiers, FEMA operators. She sighed to herself and turned back to Shane,

"There was a gunshot last night." She said to him, not sure if she wanted to know what it was, asking anyway because, fuck it, if they were stuck together now she had to know him. He frowned.

"What?" The word was sharp, too loud, too quick.

"If Rick came at you, out of nowhere with a knife, why was there a shot?" Shane looked completely blank, not like he was thinking of a lie, but like he really didn't know.

"Gun was in my hand, looking for Randall who could be dangerous. Guess I pealed off a shot as a reflex." His voice was quiet, and Brandi thought about that. Was it possible? Reflexes were just that, sudden and unexpected.

"We found him, Randall, he was a walker" she looked back at the fence lined with beasts. She almost heard Shane's brow furrow.

"He was dead!" She nodded.

"Yup, not a bite on 'im neither." She turned back to him, she believed him, about the gun shot. If that was wrong then more fool her. She couldn't spend her life on the run with someone she couldn't trust. She wanted to think of something else, anything. Daddy, Merle, even that was better than the future before them, dark and unknown.

It had been a whole day. Maybe Daryl was looking.

"Ain't no one looking. They got any sense they fucked off back to Atlanta, or even out of state." He tested his balance and let go of the truck, then span Brandi around roughly so he could reach into the backpack for one of the maps. He studied it a moment and Brandi went back to watching the walkers, moaning and fussing to get the possible food source before them. One tried to put his hand through the link fencing, and she watched as the skin peeled back from his fingers. She chewed the inside of her cheek, watching with interest, trying to think of some way they could get to safety. The walker's now skinless bony hand poked through the fence.

She heard a noise behind her and span on her heels, raising her bow and drawing an arrow. She squinted into the darkness, seeing nothing. Her arm shook with the effort of drawing the bowstring back, and she slowly lowered it. This was crazy, she wasn't scared of anything, she couldn't work out why she was so on edge.

She looked at Shane, still studying the map.

"What d'ya think?" she asked quietly, but he shook his head.

"How much fuel in the truck" Brandi blew her bangs out of her face

"Not much, few miles." Shane nodded and pointed at the map.

"Gas station" he wheezed, then turned his head and coughed. Brandi watched the spittle flying from his lips, it wasn't bloody, so there was the turn up she'd been waiting for for 24 hours.

A murmuring moan had them both standing to attention, Brandi drawing her bow once more, but it was joined by more groans and grunts, and they watched as a group of 15 creepers approached from the shadows.

"In the truck" Shane hissed, already moving. Brandi stood stock still a moment, considering letting fly, "Brandi! Don't be a hero, get in here!" And she dived in the driver's seat instead, starting the truck and heading toward the gas station Shane had shown her on the map.

She doubted it would have fuel, she doubted anything was going to work in their favour ever again.

*****

She was right.

She was always fucking right.

"Goddammit" she hissed, staring at the handwritten no gas sign hanging haphazard against one of the pumps. "Why did I listen to ya? Why are we even here, so far 'cross Georgia we might as well be in Alabama. We should be lookin' for people, not fuckin' around out here!" She punched the steering wheel, throwing her head back against the head rest with a few more curses. Shane chewed his lip beside her, rubbed his hand over his head and frowned hard.

"Hey, I didn't ask for this either." Brandi snorted, staring at the roof lining, covered in ominous yellow stains.

"Ya dragged me out here." She said, calmly enough, she thought.

"Fine, next time I'll leave you for dead!" Shane spat, and she looked at him. That hurt. Had he known who he was saving, she wondered, had he known it was her, would he have bothered. Probably not.

"Anythin's gotta be better than this." She said sadly. Wondering if Dead weren't so bad. "We've got no fuel, we've got no home. Y'ain't doin' so well, with ya stab wound, ya can't walk nowhere." She sighed "our family're out there,"

"They left ya behind Brandi, they tried to kill me." Shane shouted, too loud in the small cab.

"Y'asked for that." she sighed again. She knew it was true, deep down she was sure it wasn't on purpose. But... everyone leaves, right? That's all she learned in this life, mama left, Merle left, she tried to leave, Carol left and died for her efforts. Now Daryl was gone. Shane would leave when he was well enough.

"No" she said suddenly "Daryl wouldn't leave if he could help it."

"Brandi." Shane's words were a warning, but she shook her head.

"No." She started the car "we can roll on fumes for a while, we'll find somethin', n I'mma find my bro."

*****

Brandi sat on the floor, in the dust and the dirt and yelled into the hands that covered her face.

She was frustrated, angry and sad all at once.

The truck had run out of fuel, not 30 miles later, and she and Shane had argued again. He'd called her nasty racist names as she'd called him a filthy pig and he'd stormed off, Slamming the door so hard it shook the truck, and she knew, _KNEW_ , she would end up alone. Didn't she always? Merle in Juvy and Daryl hiding in some bar while daddy did his thing. She growled fisting her hands in her hair and stared at the trees around her, stuck on a dirt road all by herself.

Well fuck it, Shane weren't worth her damned tears, and now she could try and find Daryl on her own without him bitching about it.

She got up and dusted her ass off. Yeah, maybe alone was ok. She scrubbed her face with her now dusty hands, not realising she was leaving muddy streaks where her tears had fallen. She just needed a car, there were enough around on the highway.

She started walking, got a mere few feet when she heard Shane call her name. She gritted her teeth, fuck him. If he wanted to be a mouthy prick let him do it alone. Stabbed or not, in pain or not, there was no need for him to be so cruel to her.

But it came again, hurried, not desperate, but urgent. She growled to herself and turned in the direction of his voice, and saw him a few yards behind her, standing with a woman with a sword, and... and....

She couldn't make sense of it.

Behind the woman were two walkers with no arms on leashes.


	28. Chapter 28

**One month**

Brandi carefully tied off the clean bandages she'd wrapped around his torso, and studied Shane's face as he lay half naked and prone beneath her. They were running out of dressings again. He could barely keep his eyes open. She made a sound in the back of her throat like she was unsure of something.

"It's bad, right?" Shane croaked. Brandi didn't reply, climbing off his lap and passing him his tshirt and sweater. She looked at him a long moment before sighing.

"Ya'll get there, it's not so bad." Shane carefully pulled his clothes over his head, barely lifting his left arm before grimacing.

"Feels worse" he said with a grunt. Brandi frowned at him, not sure how to reply. It had _looked_ worse, black and yellow and oozing, she'd lied to him again, but what could she say? Honesty, knowing how bad it was, what if that caused him to lose what was left? She reckoned he had a week in him, maybe a little more. The minute she started seeing red lines in his skin, she'd tell him. "Brandi?" Shane asked weakly, and she looked down at him in the makeshift bed.

"Yeah?" She replied, sad to see him that way. He looked so damn small. This huge muscular guy broken down to a shadow of his former self by a bacterium, something so small and insignificant. He'd lost his fight, his spirit. His skin hot, clammy and pale, his eyes glazed.

"If it comes to it" he started, and she cut him off.

"Don't talk like that. C'mon." She knelt beside him and stroked his head, trying desperately not to grimace as she touched him. He was a burning furnace.

"Well, if it does, you leave me behind. I can still kick ass. You two just get out." Brandi turned her face away from him. He wasn't one to talk so emotively, and it hurt to hear it. He'd been fine. Fine! She'd sewn him together and they got on their way, ran around for three weeks, his cough cleared up, it was going so well, and now... she sighed a watery sigh and looked back at him after plastering a smile on her face. "Stop it." She said firmly. "Y'ain't dyin' today. Ya jus' a little low, k?" She bent and kissed his forehead gently, ignoring the thick, sticky sweat standing out on his hot skin, the sickly smell of his breath, just as the door to the small out of town bar they'd holed up in burst open.

"Jesus Christ!" Brandi hissed, jumping and turning to the door. "Ya hafta do that, every time?" The woman who had rushed in shrugged her shoulders.

"If I did it any other way now, you'd wonder who it was" she said quickly, not smiling despite the humour in her voice. Brandi wanted to stay mad at her. "You redress his wound?" She added more seriously. Brandi nodded.

"Yep, for the hundredth time." And it didnt appear to be helping, she didn't say, "How'd it go, Mich?" Brandi hoped for good news, for once in her life she'd be so happy to hear good news.  
A smile slowly spread on Michonne's mouth.

"Cephalexin." She said, unable to stop the smile reaching her eyes. It was a gorgeous smile, Brandi wished she would show it more. One day they'd have a lot to smile about. Brandi held her hands out, bowl like, and Michonne dropped the pill bottle in there.

"Have I ever told ya how much I love ya, Michonne?" She said, turning and nudging Shane gently, he'd drifted into a fitful state of sleep, where she knew fever dreams were waiting to get him. "C'mon, Shane." She said brightly, doing her best to hide the sadness. "Get a few a these bad boys down ya, n ya'll be right as rain." She tried to ignore Michonne's eyes on her, the truth was they didn't know what was going to happen. "Where're the boys?" She asked instead of reading into that look. Michonne pointed at the doors.

"Had a couple lurkers out there, so I tied them up on guard." Brandi nodded. Ok. So they were safe, for now. "When can we move?" Michonne asked, the tiny, wide place in the road, Town appeared to be getting busier by the day, and not with tourists. Brandi shrugged her shoulders, putting her hands in her pockets like she didn't know what to do with them. They looked to her for directions, if not 'direction' and now Shane was out of it it seemed Michonne wanted her input. She wasn't a leader.

"Few days" she answered, looking at the door and wondering how many dead would already be gathering "he needs to show signs a gettin' better before we even think a movin'." Michonne looked at her very purposefully, and Brandi shook her head sternly. "No. I'm not having this conversation with ya, Mich. He's going to get better"

Today was not the best day.

**Three months**

They were on the move again, it felt like they were going in circles. Around and around until she was dizzy.

She looked around her, watching for walkers while she rubbed her arms against the cold, and watched her breath spiral in plumes of water vapour. She wasn't in a good mood, she'd wanted to head back to the farm, just once, just to see, but was shot down by Shane, who flatly refused to believe there would be anything there.

Clues, she had said, the walkers would have dispersed by now and there could be clues. She missed Daryl. Ever present in her life for 20 odd years and now he just.. wasn't... anymore. She'd said as much and Shane had sucked his teeth and called Daryl a coward for leaving her, called her stupid for even thinking a coward would go back to the scene of the crime. She'd got very sullen with him, but he held her and hushed her as she threw angry words at him, and she let him calm her because he was right, he had to be right. Who had saved her life, she thought, who had been with her for three months on the road?

Not Daryl, that was for sure.

Shane had survived despite the odds stacked against him, and it was touch and go, but he pulled through. And he'd changed. She couldn't ask for better companions than him and Michonne. So she'd stopped flapping her gums about it, but now it felt like they were close to the long abandoned heifer farm, and she just wanted to see.

A whistle caught her attention and she looked across at Michonne. She was standing on a river bank, looking across at what appeared to be a prison. Brandi watched as Walkers staggered and stomped around the grounds, fenced in and basically harmless. She eyed every corner carefully, but there was no way, no way in Hell, they could clear it and make it a safe haven.

"That's a shame" she said quietly, her voice croaking slightly. She wondered when she had last spoken. They didn't much anymore. They were tired, aching, sore from tracking all over and finding nothing. Words were wasted energy, they saved them for the important stuff.

Shane was farther down the bank, collecting water they could later filter and boil. He looked up and watched the walkers at Brandi's words. His hair was growing back, all dark and curly, and he had quite a beard coming on. She preferred him with hair. The shaved headed Shane was a crazier specimen. He still had his moments. Just the previous week he had lost his shit over something so ridiculous she couldn't even remember what it was, but without Rick, and Lori pushing him, he seemed a lot less hotheaded, if still a bit egotistic. She could allow him that, he'd done so much for them. 

She saw a rabbit, too curious for its own good, behind him, and carefully raised her bow. The string pinged delicately, and the rabbit was speared under the armpit. She smiled triumphantly and went to get the bunny.

"Lunch!" She said, holding it up by its back legs. They had food.

Today was a good day.

**Six Months**

Brandi pushed her back against the wall as though she could make herself completely flat and invisible. She held her breath as though that might help, too. She listened intently as the walker shambled forward toward her. She weighed the stone she held in her hand carefully, and then turned the corner of the wall slightly to check where the walker was looking. Not at her, good. She threw the stone to the opposite corner of the room, and waited. The walker grunted, shuffled its disgusting feet, and headed to where the stone had landed.

On tiptoes she ran across the open archway that separated the hallway from the living room, heading for what she hoped would be the kitchen in this house she'd never been in before.  
They were all much the same, though, these houses. It had to be a kitchen, where else would it be?

She didn't have time to ponder that. The walker she'd distracted would soon realise there was no food in the corner of the living room, and come looking for her again. She took a steadying breath, almost losing control because she kept feeling the need to just not breathe lest she make a sound. She reached for the door handle and twisted it, squeezing her eyes closed, waiting for a squeak or a groan from the old disused metal. When nothing came she pushed the door slightly, a knife up by her ear, ready, at least, as ready as she'd ever be.

Yet there was nothing in the kitchen looking for a meal, except herself, and she quickly and quietly rifled through cupboards and drawers, hoping for a little something to eat, something to get them through a few more days.

She darted quickly out of the house, her backpack clanging noisily as the three tins she found in the kitchen rolled together. She shut the front door behind her into the face of the walker who saw her fly back past the archway and started following. Shane span to face her with his gun up, not relaxing until she was back by his side. He'd been keeping watch while Michonne slept in an abandoned-unfortunately useless- car in the driveway. With three of them they had a rolling sleep Rota. They desperately tried to have someone awake at all times. It was the safest way while they had no solid walls.

Shane flung his arm over Brandi's shoulder and pulled her close, kissing the top of her temple.

"Anything?" He asked her and she nodded, showing him her stash. Two tins of tomatoes, a tin of kidney beans. If she could catch them some meat they'd have a full on feast. If she couldn't, as was more likely these days, they could probably stretch those tins out to two days. Hunger was something they all lived with, like it or not, there was no way around it. Even Michonne's walkers, strapped to the car through the door, seemed to have moments of sheer starvation, moaning as best they could with no jaws, shuffling their feet to chase something they'd never be able to get, what with the chains.

Shane gave her a nod and a smile, she found food, no one died.

Today was the best day in a long time.


	29. Chapter 29

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning Casual Dixon-esque racism, sorry.

**Eight months**

"You're not worried you'll catch it?" Brandi scoffed and raised her eyes at Shane.

"Ain't been sick my whole life, ain't plannin' on startin' now." Shane nodded, Brandi narrowed her eyes at him. "Ain't leavin' 'er." She said flatly. Shane looked stunned.

"I didn't say that." He sidled a little closer to her on the floor where they kept a vigil over Michonne and her sickness. "I don't think we should leave her, but we do need to move, soon."

"Go." They both turned to Michonne, laying out on the floor looking ashy and poorly. "Leave, I'll be fine." Brandi dived to her side and stroked her dreads away from her face.

"Nah," she shook her head "we ain't goin' without ya, n Y'ain't movin' til ya better." She turned to Shane. "Water." She said, holding her hand out for a bottle. She fed it to Michonne, who tried not to drink too much.

"Save it" she said, turning her head away forcefully, eyes red and glassy "you'll need it when you go." Brandi sat back with a sigh.

"Ain't goin'"

"You should!" Michonne said angrily. But Shane stood suddenly, drawing both their attention.

"We'll all go" he said, stretching "I'm sick'a this damn meat locker and I'm sick of you two arguing. We leave, now. If we stay here much longer we'll fucking die here, or I will." He began collecting their things, "I'll take the boys, come on. Just staying in this place is enough to make you poorly."

*****

They watched the smoke a moment before Brandi turned to Shane, he was clearly eager to check it out, and she was pretty curious. They edged closer as smoke billowed into the sky.

"You should stay back." Shane said to Brandi, touching her arm gently "Stay with Mich, keep her safe. I'll check it out." Brandi and Michonne crouched down behind a bush, and watched as Shane went to see what was going on with the helicopter that had crashed. She felt a familiar pang of worry in her chest as he disappeared to check out something on the ground. She reminded herself he had survived against so many odds, he always came back to her. Brandi turned to Michonne a moment, she was holding up ok, considering. She didn't complain, she never complained, but she looked like Hell. She'd heard the flu was a bastard, but she'd never had it herself to know. She was grey and ashy in the face, eyes glazed and not focussing well. These days they let Michonne get the most sleep, their rota screwed by the woman's illness. It wasn't enough. She should have been laid up permanently for a week, but if just wasn't possible.  
Shane launched himself behind the bushes with them. Brandi looked at him expectantly.

"Two dead, third guy" he shook his head "I don't know, look," he used his chin to indicate the car that had arrived. They watched quietly as a group piled out and surrounded the chopper. Brandi put a hand out to Michonne as she coughed quietly into her leather gloved hand, but no one appeared to notice.

"He's helpin' 'em" Brandi said hopefully, watching one of the men as he headed into the chopper and called another over to him, but Shane put a hand firmly on her shoulder.

"Wait." She reminded herself he was still a cop, had a cop's suspicion of everyone, but these guys seemed ok, killing walkers quietly, checking out these soldiers who had fallen to their deaths.  
Brandi continued watching as Michonne tensed up beside her, and Shane reached for his knife on her other side. The boys were agitated, grunting and moving, pulling against their chains. What had she missed while she watched these men? She needed to pay more attention. It was unlike her to be so involved with one thing to not see something else. She guessed she got that from Daddy. She hadn't thought about him in a while, she pushed the thought away. Daddy was dead, if she didn't start paying more attention to the world around her, so could she be.

Suddenly Michonne downed her own walkers, chopped their heads clean off in a movement that must have been such a strain to perform in her state. Brandi turned to see what was going on, and all but jolted to a stop mid turn when she saw a real sight for sore eyes.

"Ho-ly shit!" Merle cursed at her "Brandi-Lyn? Thatchoo?" Brandi opened and closed her mouth a couple of times, staring at her brother, large as life and twice as ugly, bearing down on her and her companions with a knife for a hand and a big grin on his chops. He looked good, really good.

"M...Merle?" She managed, mouth feeling dry and paralysed.

"Don' faint on me little sister, now, c'mon." He went to put his hand under Brandi's armpit, but Shane was on him in a second.

"Back off Dixon!" He growled, and Brandi was so stunned by the events unfolding before her, she didn't know if Shane was talking to her or to Merle.

"Hey, pig, ya shut ya mouth, y'hear? I wanna take a holda my own damn sister I will." Merle didn't let go, and brandished his sword wielding arm at Shane. "Like that? Made it myself, some damn asshole strapped me to a roof n that nigger with the big head happened to lose the key." Brandi pulled her arm from Merle's grasp, looked at him a moment, and then shoved him as hard as she could. He stumbled back half a step before straightening.

"Daryl went to find ya, n ya weren't there, Daryl was screwed up from losin' ya, why the fuck ya leave? He coulda died!"

"Hey!" Merle cut her off and pointed in her face "how ya think I felt? All strapped up unable to move, biters bearin' down on me?!How ya think that felt baby? Huh? Wanna find out?" Brandi narrowed her eyes. He wouldn't dare.

"She's your sister! " Shane yelled through gritted teeth. "Don't threaten her like that!" Shane squared up to Merle, despite his weapons and his bitterness. "You've found each other, that's got to mean something." Brandi looked at Shane, scowling, that wasn't what he'd been saying all this time about Daryl. Was he still holding a grudge against Rick after everything? It had been 8 months! Maybe he was still more of a hothead than she thought. Maybe he was still in love with Lori. She shook her head, told herself not to be so pathetic. Who cares? None of that stuff mattered anymore and if Shane thought it did then, well, that was his damn problem.

"Ya look pretty set." She said to Merle. "Ya gotta place?" Shane shot around to glare at her, but she was pissed with him, so ignored it, she ignored Michonne, she spoke only to Merle.  
He grinned widely.

"Girl, ya gonna love what I got."

They were blindfolded, chucked in the car, and driven to this place. Now they sat in what looked like a hospital room, Michonne, suddenly mute and very suspicious, was fighting with the drip in her arm.

"Daryl dead?" Merle asked Brandi as she tried to soothe Michonne into accepting the help these people were giving her. Brandi shook her head.

"I don't think so" she said

"Left her for dead" Shane spat before she could finish her thought. "Rick tried to kill me and your brother left her when a herd came and took over the farm we were on." Merle snorted.

"Rick. That's right, ol' officer friendly." He looked at his handless arm, then at Brandi. "Oh Baby girl, that makes two of us." Brandi shook her head at her brother, still stunned that she'd found him, or he'd found her.

"Weren't like that, it ain't." She looked at Merle, ignoring Shane who looked fit to burst. "He hadta go, it was too damn dangerous." Merle laughed a little, nodded his head.

"I always thought he was the sweet one, our brother." He laughed again "clearly he ain't." Brandi snarled at him. Daryl was sweet and loving and thoughtful. More a real man than Merle ever was.

"Shut ya damn mouth Merle, ya don't know shit about either a us! Ya were never round long 'nuff to know nothin'!" Merle glared at her, and she breathed hard from speaking so much in a short time. She wasn't used to it.

"Cuz ya were there, right? Ya stayed, din't run off to college the minute ya were able, hmm?" Brandi didn't reply. She didn't owe Merle anything. He knew what it was like at home, he understood, he was just playing the hard done by eldest sibling. She sighed and turned back to Michonne, who seemed to have calmed a little, still suspicious and watching them all with interest. Shane was red in the face and fighting biting his tongue. But eventually he would blow, Brandi could see it.

"What do you want with us?" Michonne asked, and Merle laughed again.

"Really? Sitting there in the dry, the warm, medicine in ya veins, n ya askin' me what I want." He shook his head and looked at Shane. "What do you want pig , hmm? Hangin' around with my sister and the mute here. What ya gettin' out of it? Nice bit of rough, huh." Merle began to chuckle to himself and made the mistake of turning his back on Shane, who stepped forward and punched the eldest Dixon in the jaw. Brandi saw it happening and said nothing. Merle had it coming.

As if by magic there were guns in Shane's face, Brandi's heart sped up, but the leader of this place, wherever and whatever it was walked in the door.

"Hey hey hey, what is going on here?" He asked in a calming tone. "Now now come on, now. Merle, these are our guests." Merle pulled a face.

"He punched me!" Merle spat, but the head honcho shook his head with a smile

"Who hasn't wanted to punch Merle from time to time? Get out of here, I want to talk to our guests." Merle gave his leader a nod, shooting a hard, untrusting, look at the three newcomers, and left the room, shutting the door behind him quietly.

"We want our stuff, our weapons" Shane said bitterly, and the leader nodded his head

"Sure thing, on your way out of the gates, but we don't open them after dark, and you," he looked at Michonne and Brandi defensively put her arm around her shoulders "you need a decent night's rest. Wouldn't last long out there in your condition." Shane huffed.

"Not like she's alone."

"And what would you do? Punch all the biters to death?" Shane nodded

"If that's what it takes." The leader smiled, then laughed.

"I like you. Listen, one night, that's all I'm asking, maybe you'll change your mind about us."

*****

The governor, as they learned he was known, showed them around their dark and quiet little town and then to an apartment room. There was one bed, he apologised it wasn't better. Brandi and Shane had snorted at that, though Brandi felt for different reasons, Michonne, half asleep again by the time they got to the room, said nothing.

"Thank you." Shane said, far too enthusiastic for Brandi's liking, his eyes bright and a triumphant smile on his face. She didn't like him looking like that, almost smug,  
As the door closed and The Governor disappeared Brandi was glaring at Shane.

"What was that?" She asked him in a hushed but angry whisper. He'd been so enthralled by the place, the military like watches the weaponry all these people carried. She felt sick, Shane looked like he'd finally found his Fort Benning. He narrowed his eyes and ran a hand over his head, making Brandi's suspicions deepen. He hadn't pulled that one in almost a year, rubbing his head that way, it made her nervous.

"Place is fortified," he said, apparently astounded she wasn't as eager as him. "They got healthcare, they got walls, they got weapons. Ain't this what we wanted, Brandi? Huh? Those dark nights out in the woods eating twigs, didn't we talk about this place?"  Sure they had, their _own_ place. Her and Shane, Michonne and her boys, all hooked up somewhere safe, forever. She'd even thought maybe they could have kids of their own, start repopulating. She shook her head at him slowly

"Not like this, not with _that_ guy. Even Merle is weird here. I don't like it." Merle was weird. He'd always been confident and cocky, but he never answered to anyone. what did he owe this governor guy, or what did he _think_ he owed him.

"He's a charmer," Michonne said sleepily, already curled on the bed.

"He's a suck ass and I don't buy it!" Brandi stopped just short of stamping her feet.

"Just a day" Shane tried "c'mon he's given us shelter and food and medicine. Your brother is here. Isn't that what you wanted?" Brandi almost hissed that it was the wrong damn brother, but Shane wouldn't get that. She wanted Daryl, now more than ever. He'd see through this just like she was. He'd get her to safety, where Shane thought now they were safe.

She knew different, but getting Shane to listen now he had an idea growing like a seed in his head was going to be damn hard.


	30. Chapter 30

Brandi refused to shower, she almost refused to eat, but Shane was completely insistent. She didn't want to land up owing this Governor guy anything back. She'd been in relationships like that, it wasn't for her. Not anymore. Shane wanted to talk to the guy some more, go out and check the place out in the day time. Brandi was unsure, and Michonne just kept mostly quiet about, shooting out death stares every now and then as the pair discussed it.

That was rich, they were flat out arguing about it.

"What happened to bein' a cop, bein' suspicious?" Brandi asked as Shane dressed. 

"I'm not a cop anymore, there _arent any_ cops anymore. You want the police force to protect you from this shit, you're gonna have to go back in time a year." Brandi rolled her eyes and poked at the food in the can in her hands. She really was not hungry. "Look" Shane crouched down to her sitting at the end of the bed. "I want to have a look around, check this place out. Like you said last night, it might not quite be right for us, but we should give it a chance." Brandi scowled and Michonne answered for her

"Sounded like you already made up your mind" Shane didn't answer, but he looked at Michonne for a long time. The silence was thick, like a solid thing. Brandi looked between them glaring threateningly at each other, wondering what had happened to them all. They'd been solid, stuck together through a nightmare of lost hope, now Michonne was finally starting to get better, and they were at odds.

She needed to convince Shane that this place was a hole. Maybe now they'd found Merle she could convince Shane to help her find Daryl. Hell, maybe Merle too. To do that she'd have to speak to her big brother. To do that she'd have to find him.

Eventually, fed up with the loaded silence, Brandi slammed her half full can down, startling both her companions into looking at her.

"Fine, we'll go out, have a look 'round. I wanna talk to Merle anyway." Maybe, just maybe, Shane would see something to raise his suspicions again. He was reverting back to farm Shane, she didn't like that him as much as the guy he'd become. He'd stepped up, stepped away from his ego, put her first, and stopped taking so many risks. Now? She didn't want to think about now.

"Good." Shane said, placing his hand softly on the back of her neck and squeezing gently. "How about you Michonne? You up for this?" Michonne was staring intently at Brandi, who gave her half a shrug and raised her eyebrows.

"Let's give it a try." She said, hopefully, and Michonne nodded.

"Fine. I'd feel better with my katana, though."

*****

The guard at the door got them a guide for their daylight tour, some woman called Rowan, who marched around with clipboard like she was important.

"Everything you see is real, you guys were out there a long time, and while you were the governor was doing this." Shane stood with his hands on his hips, turning and taking everything in. Brandi narrowed her eyes at their tour guide, while Michonne looked to be looking for a way out. Brandi was concerned that she was going to just leave, all of a sudden. She looked like a caged animal, she knew what that look meant. She'd seen it in Shane's eyes a long long time ago.

"How many people you got?" Shane asked, and Brandi felt a little hope at that, asking questions was good, it meant he wasn't taking things at face value. Brandi didn't catch the answer, she was watching life go on around her. It felt uncomfortable somehow, watching people act so much like they did before the dead got back up. Shit, she was uncomfortable with it before then, too. Men and women sharing pleasantries and working together, it was all unimportant. Staying alive, fending off the monsters. That was what mattered, her neighbours could go screw themselves for all she ever cared.

She watched two little girls cross the street. Together and thought of Sophia for the first time in a very long while. Her heart sputtered a little in her chest as she felt a hollow sort of longing. She'd forced herself not to think of the kid, and it had been damn hard to get to a point where she wasn't Brandi's first or last thought everyday. She folded her arms, angry at herself, and at the kids, at this whole damn place for managing to make her sentimental again.

"I saw what your patrols do on the way in last night." Michonne was spitting at Rowan. "They had a dead walker strung up like a damn trophy." Rowan's face contracted in confusion,

"You were blindfolded." Michonne shrugged and waited for an explanation, Brandi looked at Shane, who was staring again at Michonne very hard before looking around him again, mostly at the wall, like he wanted to inspect it more closely. That had to be good. Brandi tried not to get her hopes up, but it was hard not to here.

"I won't make excuses, but they've lost more than a few friends out there. People cope in their own way." She shrugged breezily and continued "I'll bring it up with the governor." Her eyes sparkled when she mentioned his name, and Brandi knew she was completely taken with her leader.

"D'ya know how the pilot's doin'?" Brandi asked the woman before she could leave them. Rowan looked at her a moment before answering.

"Dr. Stevens is doing her best, but he was in quite a mess by the time you all arrived."

They continued their tour alone, wandering the streets and making small talk with locals. Shane especially seemed keen to find out more about the place, guards, shifts, patrols, and every answer he heard seemed to make him more keen. Brandi's heart just sank further and further with every positive thing they heard. Something wasn't right, but she couldn't put her finger on it. Without clear and concise reasoning Shane wouldn't even hear her argument. She needed something to prove to him this place wasn't what it appeared.

Michonne was just walking around scowling, and without even a word Brandi knew she felt the same, but she wouldn't leave Shane behind, she owed him too much.

They were looking to give up, head back to their room, when Brandi caught sight of Merle.

"Hey!" She yelled, darting across the road to him. He turned to her with a grin, and she noticed he was wearing a sleeve without a knife attached to it.

"Brandi-Lynn. How ya doin' baby girl?" Brandi considered hugging him, but hesitated long enough that the moment passed. It shouldn't be this awkward to speak to her own brother. "The gov'nor wan'ed to talk to you n ya friends over lunch. Was jus' comin' to find ya." Brandi frowned at him.

"Justa tell me that?" She knew different. Merle nodded.

"Yeah, ya know, maybe find out where ya last saw that dumbass twin a yours." He shrugged once. "Maybe see if I c'n find him." Brandi nodded back at him, pleased to hear he was a little concerned, at least.

"I could go with ya."

"No" she barely finished her sentence and he jumped down her throat. "Nah" he said more calmly "dangerous out there, I'd rather ya here, safe, behind the walls." Brandi frowned up at him,

"I was out there, Merle. In the thick of it. Anyway, he's my twin, I know y'all have ya bond or whatever, but I wanna see him, too." Merle shook his head.

"Listen, sister, ya go out there, with me, n I don't bring ya back... couldn't live with that." He put his hand on her shoulder and gave her a little gentle shake "I ain't leavin' ya behind, I'm leavin' ya safe. I'll find him, I promise ya." He let her go and straightened "anyway, gov'nor wants to see ya," Brandi rolled her eyes.

"So, what? Do we dress for dinner or what?" Merle pealed off a raucous laugh.

*****

"Eight months. That's a long time." They'd been introduced to a little ferret of a man called Milton, who poured them tea and wanted to apparently know a lot more about them than Brandi was willing to tell. "Surprised you lasted so long."

"Hey." Shane said, offended, but Brandi managed to hush him with a look. She wanted to hear what these people had to say, wanted him to hear. If he could make up his own mind that this wasn't the place for them it'd be easier to get him out. He was stubborn once his mind was made up.

"Because you were alone, three against the world?" Milton continued. Brandi huffed a quiet laugh, Michonne jumping in to have her say.

"We managed." She said venomously.

"Surviving in the wilds is tough" the governor interjected, appearing to speak solely to Shane. "Waking up every morning on the ground wondering if today is the day."

"We didn't think like that." Brandi said "ya can't, no point. Ya'd be stone dead before ya started."

"Do you think they remember anything? What they once were?" Brandi snorted into her tea.

"Nope"

"Milton thinks there might be a little something left behind, an echo."

"Surely it must have crossed your mind?" The little ferret boy finally said, sounding nervous. Brandi shook her head.

"Maybe once" Shane said "but not anymore, seen too many to think they're still people. That is gone, once they come back there's nothing left." Brandi's mind went to Carol. She stared at her plate and thought about the woman she thought could really be special, the woman she so admired. Pinned all her hopes on.   
It wasn't Carol that Daryl shot in the face all that time ago. Shane took her hand and squeezed it, she almost jumped out her skin, she looked up and smiled at him, pleased to see the new Shane hadn't completely disappeared in this place.

"Alright?" He asked and she gave him a shallow nod, pulling her hand away, still uncomfortable with his easy familiarity.

"Those two you had on chains." Milton addressed Michonne "the way you controlled them, used them to your benefit." Michonne's face screamed murder, but as was usual she didn't make a sound. "You knew them, didn't you?" If she could shoot laser beams from her eyes, Brandi was sure Michonne would have. She didn't know if The boys were people Michonne knew, had actually never thought to ask. Chopping their heads off the way she had must have been even more difficult than the flu rendered it if they were people she had known.   
Brandi shuddered.

"So what you have here," Shane asked, "you expect it to hold?" This was a conversation she was more comfortable with, less personal. The governor explained, seemingly only for Shane's benefit, that he was building community, and a familiar life for people.

"People here have homes, medical care. Kids go to school and adults have jobs." Shane all but beamed, he chucked an arm over the back of Brandi's chair.

"What did you do before, Shane?" Milton asked, apparently intrigued. Shane told them he was a cop, his head growing with every word. Brandi narrowed her eyes at him as he spoke, the governor seemed fairly impressed.

"We could use a guy like you, on patrol, on the wall, how does that sound? Merle's considering going to look for his brother" Shane scoffed at that, but the governor continued, ignoring him. "Going to have a gap, you could fill it." Shane looked like he might cheer, "I'll get the guys to show the ropes." Brandi was about to speak, but there was a knock on the door, and the governor excused himself to answer it.

"Got a job for me," Shane said, grinning. "Don't sound so bad, Brandi, does it?" She rolled her eyes, now she knew she'd never get him away from Woodbury.

"I'm sorry, but I have to cut you short, this can't wait." The Governor said, and it seemed their audience with Woodbury royalty was over.

Brandi hit the street almost running.

"I don't trust him, Michonne?" She looked to the woman for confirmation and she shook her head.

"No, I don't either." Brandi looked at Shane, he rolled his eyes.

"You two don't trust anything. C'mon girls, we're sitting pretty at the end of the world!"

"He knew how to get to ya!" Brandi said. "Jus' 'bout ass fucked ya ego, twistin' ya round his little finger." Shane narrowed his eyes at her.

"Give this a few days, get our shit together, we were out there 8 months, I can't anymore. This is civilisation, girl. The real world. Everything we need." Brandi sighed. Everything Shane needed. That little lunchtime ego massage had just about tipped him over the edge.

"Doesn't feel right. Doesn't feel safe." she said, but Shane rolled his eyes at her. He threw his arm across her shoulders and pulled her in close as they walked.

"It's what we wanted. Real life again. Walls. Not like the farm, there's no walkers in the barn here, Brandi" he kissed her temple hard and she was torn.

Two Shane's were working on her now, and she had no idea what she could do to get either of them to listen. 

 


	31. Chapter 31

The governor arrived back from his errand later in the day, and gave a rousing speech to the town. Shane listened with a look of awe on his face that made Brandi sick to her stomach. She nudged him, confused. He wasn't a stupid man, he was hotheaded, act first think later, suspicious, but not stupid. It was like the governor had put a damn spell on him. She looked around her at the townspeople, all in awe, hanging on this guy's every word. He really was like a politician, letting them hear just enough about what was going on outside to make them want to stay with him, when in reality, he was just keeping them weak and reliant. If the walls did ever come down she knew they would all be screwed. The townspeople wouldn't last a minute out there, and in keeping life inside Woodbury that way the Governor was wrong.

She narrowed her eyes. Maybe there was a way to get Shane to see through this, and find out what little more there may be to know about the governor.

A plan was forming in her mind. It could well be her downfall, and she may lose Shane, but she'd just have to start thinking of him as a bed warmer, rather than a damn life partner. Like she had before.

She'd have to revert to being the old Brandi-Lynn, and the old Brandi-Lynn always got what she wanted.

She looked to Michonne, standing with her arms folded, listening to the governor with a look of disbelief on her face.

"He's eatin' it up." Brandi whispered and Michonne leaned towards her a little.

"Did you expect anything else? He's been in love with this guy since we got here" Brandi frowned across at Shane as the group burst into applause and he clapped right along with them, big firm loud bursts of noise. Brandi cringed.

"He jus' wanted us all safe," she said "like we talked about." Michonne scoffed, a sharp puff of air through her nostrils.

"You feel safe? You really think the national guard got overrun? We survived, Brandi. We survived and the soldiers couldn't?" She made that scoffing noise again and walked away shaking her head as the crowd dispersed, leaving Brandi frowning on her own in the middle of the street.

Michonne had made a very valid point. The governor had come back with a tank, and other armoured vehicles, and armed to the gills, and the soldiers, trained in combat for just this kind of fiasco, hadn't managed to save themselves? It didn't sit right with her, not even nearly. Shane approached and slung his arm around her neck, pulling her close despite her trying to stand firm.

"We got so lucky" he said into her hair. She pulled away so his hand rested on her shoulder and raised an eyebrow at him.

"I don' like this," she said, "I'm actually real uncomfortable with the fact they turned up here with armoured vehicles safe n sound, losin' nobody, n the National Guard couldn't even hold their own." She shrugged him off and turned to face him. " _The National Guard_ Shane. The guys ya was so keen on groupin' up with a year ago, perished."

"They were overrun, like we were, back on the farm."

"We managed without mass weaponry!" She hissed at him. She closed her eyes and sighed. "I wanna leave. I wanna go n find my bro, I wanna get as far away from that dude as possible." It was Shane's turn to frown.

"We're safe, Brand' does it matter how? Whatever happened to the national guard, we are safe on this guy's side." She didn't have an answer for that. So Shane understood the governor had to have done something, but was sitting on it for the safety of the walls? She stepped away from him so he was no longer touching her. She folded her arms and glared at him.

"So ya with me n Michonne?" Shane shrugged.

"I understand where you're coming from, but what's worth more? Being honest, or being safe?" Brandi frowned. Shane went to put his arm around her again, but she stepped away, unable to believe he would rather stay here with such a guy in charge, than try it on their own again.

"Me n Michonne are going to be leavin'." She said to him harshly. "So perhaps you c'n decide what's worth more overnight." She turned, arms still folded and stormed away from him, bumping almost immediately into the Governor.

"Hey hey." He said sounding concerned, "what's wrong?" She shuddered inside, but maybe she could do this without losing her friends, maybe she could do this and Shane would realise what was worth more than a couple tyre walls and a few guns.

"I jus'," she paused, changing her own face to concern. "Poor Wells, N the soldiers? There's too mucha this goin' on, I'm so glad" she smiled sadly "so glad we came here." The governor nodded, looking slightly smug.

"Hey, you're safe now, you haven't got to worry anymore. It is a shame, about Wells, Dr Stevens did everything she could." Brandi nodded.

"Ya have a good thing here, n I'm sure Shane will make a fine asset."

"I heard you were leaving." The Governor seemed surprised.

"We're thinkin' 'bout it."

"Be a real shame to lose you, we barely got to know each other, and Michonne's a great warrior. We could use you all here with us." Brandi narrowed her eyes playfully.

"N what would ya have me do, Governor?" She said the last, his title, very deliberately. He laughed, throwing his head back, Brandi tried not to think about clawing his exposed neck.

"Hang around, and you'll find out." Brandi smiled coquettishly, trying not to die inside too much. He turned to leave, and she called out to him.

"What's yareal name?" She shrugged. "I assume ya've got one." He smiled with a closed mouth.

"I never tell." He said apologetically. Brandi smiled

"Never say never." She said, trying to sound breezy, but his face changed, going cold, and she thought she was finally getting a glimpse of the real governor.

"Never." He said, before walking away. She let him go, she had enough for now. She felt dirty having flirted with him, and a little bit guilty for Shane, even if he was being his usual asshole self, she owed him a lot.

She just had to remember that he was disposable, like everyone else who had hopped in to her bed.

She felt Shane's presence behind her, turned to him before he spoke.

"You flirting with him?" She smiled

"Why, ya jealous?" He laughed and shook his head all at once.

"He's got more class than that Brandi." She swatted him playfully

"What, n you don't?" He smiled at her, shook his head again.

"Nope." And buried his face into her neck. A sharp pang of need flowed through Brandi's body and she pulled away from Shane and the hard wet kisses he was slathering her with. She ran her hands down his not inconsiderable arms and took his hand, thinking if she could prove to him she was worth staying with, perhaps they'd all leave tomorrow. Either that or she could get him into a state of bliss and change his mind. She sighed with a smile and began walking him back to their temporary home. He resisted, just for a second, and Brandi turned to him.

"Hey, now, the governor wanted me on the wall, to see what I can do." She smiled and looked at him under her lashes.

"Don't ya wanna see what I c'n do?" She asked huskily, "the governor can wait 20 minutes." She pulled his hand again, and he followed more eagerly.

*****

Brandi was removing her clothes before the door had even shut behind them. They hadn't been alone in a long time, and she was surprised by how eager she was to do this. Wanting to change Shane's view may have been part of it, the big brown eyes and dark curly hair, those arm muscles, they were absolutely, definitely, part of it.

Shane shut the door and slammed her against it, reaching down past her body and putting the latch across as Brandi buried her hands in his hair and curled her leg around him. Shane thrust against her and her ass banged into the door noisily, and she found herself hoping he would just fuck her there, standing, the door rattling in its frame as they pounded against it.

She pulled her mouth from his breathlessly and reached for the waist of his jeans, finding he had already unclasped his belt. She pushed his pants down a little, exposing everything she needed, and Shane grabbed her hands and held her wrists above her head with one hand. He kissed her, pushing his hard and exposed dick against her. They grunted in each other's mouths before she turned her head to one side for air.

"Get my pants off before ya cream all over yaself." She grunted, a demand he was more than happy to comply with. Still holding her arms above her head, he used his free hand to deftly unbutton her jeans, which then slid far too easily down to her knees. She wriggled out of them, he didn't question her lack of underwear.

He lifted her leg up over his elbow, and pressed her into the door, balancing her that way, one hand now on her ass. He pushed into her, gently, too gently. Brandi growled and pushed her shoulders against the door, thrusting her groin towards him

"Fuck me." She grunted "I ain't got no time for love makin'." He looked at her face, into her eyes, and she watched him as he slammed into her, over and over again, the door crashing into its frame until plaster dust started to sprinkle down from ceiling.

*****

Breathlessly she lay on the floor, Shane twisted around her, unable to stand on her own two feet just yet. She reached across to Shane's hair, and shook the plaster dust off it.

"I think we broke the room." She said with a smile "ain't managed that before." Shane made a sound between a grunt and a breath, too spent to offer any real reply. It was Brandi's chance, between sleep and wakefulness she was more likely to get what she wanted from him.

As if she hadn't already.

"Shane?" She managed, now stroking his curly head with one hand, the plaster dust long gone, but enjoying the feel of his hair under her fingers. He hummed a reply, and she suddenly felt very sad. He wouldn't want to join them, he wouldn't want to leave, and leaving him behind shouldn't have been an option. "I'm leavin', me n Michonne. My friendship, our friendship, is more important to me than hidin' behind walls with a liar. I can't help but think he went to the national guard feigning bringin' 'em here n then shot 'em all dead." She stopped stroking his hair, and sighed. "One a the kids he took came back white as a ghost, with vomit on his shirt." Shane opened his eyes and looked at her, she couldn't hold his gaze.

"What you're saying is, whether I come or not?" Brandi scooted closer to him on the floor and gave him an awkward hug.

"Jus' think about it. Please? That guy ain't no good, the people here are weak as kittens. Ya want that? Huh? When someone eventually comes to take what they got here. A weak ass army of children n old ladies?" Shane smiled a little. 

"No."

"Someone'll want this, there's always someone wants ya stuff, whether that's safety or food or guns, n then what? Ya'll die here or hafta leave." She sniffed, not realising how much this meant to her. "Ya might as well come tomorrow. Saves gettin' settled n having to leave later." Shane didn't answer for a long time, and she thought he'd fallen asleep when he finally spoke again.

"This is all I wanted" he said, starting to move like he might get up "for you, for us, from the farm until now. Real safety, real hope for the future." He stood and started to dress, leaving Brandi feeling very cold and lonely.

"Will I ever convince ya otherwise?" She asked sadly.

"Will I?" He asked right back, and she shook her head sadly. So this was it, then? It was over just like that? She sat up and watched him dress, heading for the door.

"Governor wanted me on watch, so, maybe I'll see ya before the morning."


	32. Chapter 32

The knock at the door had Brandi scrabbling to get dressed. She was almost done when the knock came again, and she thought how impatient people had got at the end of the world. She was still buttoning her fly when she opened the door, not expecting the governor to be the other side.  
She didn't speak, just stared at him, leaving the top two buttons of her jeans undone.

"Hi" he said eventually, after looking her up and down and drinking her in. "Am I interrupting something?" She shook her head and stepped aside to let him in, her invitation left as her walking away from the open door.

"What c'n I do for ya, gov'nor?" She asked him, eyeing the bottle of scotch and two cut crystal glasses in his hands.

"A parting drink." He smiled, holding it up. "We're very sorry to see you go." He shrugged his shoulders, pulling a chair from the tiny table in the corner of the room. "But this place isn't for everybody. You seem like the type who might be more comfortable outside." Brandi frowned at him.

"Really? How so?"

"Well, if you're anything like your brother..." he paused, then gestured to the free chair. "Sit, take a drink with me." She sat, and the governor filled them both out two fingers of the amber whiskey. She licked her lips, not failing to notice him watching.

"Your man Shane is doing very well out there. Takes orders well, wants to be a part of this." Brandi took a drink and smiled as the warmth oozed down her throat and into her stomach.

"Mmm, that, that is good." The governor smiled but said nothing, expecting a reply. "Shane will likely stay." She said sadly, pushing her glass towards him and watching as he duly refilled it. Three fingers she noticed this time.

"How do you feel about that?" He asked. She shrugged, shook her head.

"I thought I meant more to him than I obviously do." She cut herself short, she hadn't had a drink in a long time and it seemed it had taken affect very quickly. She had no intention of being so honest.

"I'm sorry." The governor said, sounding anything but. Brandi downed what was left in her glass and shrugged again.

"Shit happens." She said roughly, a lump in the back of her throat. "Thought I was done losin' people, clearly I ain't." Her words were wavering around the edges, and she felt she'd already given too much away.

"You don't have to go." The governor said.

"Yeah, I do. I'm gonna look for my other brother, my twin."

"Merle was going to head out and find Daryl, he'll bring him here if he does." He smiled at her and put his hand over hers, which rested on the table. "Means you don't have to risk your life, and you can stay with Shane." Brandi sighed and pulled her hand away, never before had a man getting too close felt like a problem she couldn't handle, but her head was woozy and she was feeling more and more uncomfortable.

"I think ya should go," she said, going to stand and stumbling, holding the chair for stability "please, I think, if Shane comes back, Governor, goodbye."

"Philip," he said "my name is Philip and I'm sorry I made you uncomfortable." Brandi nodded, now holding the door open.  
Thankfully he left without anymore inappropriateness.

Brandi laughed to herself as she shut the door. What the hell was that? If anyone was being inappropriate it was her practically inviting him to become attracted to her. Never had a man made her feel so out of her comfort zone, Hell, she thought her comfort zone was endless, ever expanding, like the universe or some shit. She lay on the bed, wondering where Michonne was, wondering if Shane was seeing anything he didn't like. It was dark out, Michonne at least should have been back.

*****

She woke to Shane clambering into bed beside her, curling around her and kissing her bare shoulder.

"How'd it go?" She asked into the darkness, scared she knew the answer, and now not knowing what she was going to do. As far as she knew Michonne had still not appeared.

"Good." Shane's arms snaked around her body and she stiffened, as she always did at first. It took a long time for her to get used to having sex someone and have them stay next to her for hours after, and sleeping with someone without fucking was also weird. She wondered if she'd be more comfortable if Shane topped and tailed with her. Shane never complained when she stiffened, never took it as rejection. She sighed to herself, he'd been pretty good to her, once he got over himself and realised his needs were not all that mattered.

Now she was worried things might go backwards.

"Real good." He breathed into her ear, taking hold of her left breast and squeezing it gently.  
For the first time, perhaps ever, she wasn't in the mood. "Governor seemed impressed, as did the other boys on the wall." He went quiet for a moment, gently kneading her breast. "I think we're gonna like it here, Brandi, I really do." Brandi turned slowly in his arms so they were face to face, practically nose to nose.

"Ya precious governor, he came here tonight with amazingly expensive scotch whiskey and came on to me." Shane laughed a little.

"And that bothered you? That never bothers you." He kissed the tip of her nose, acting all soppy again. She hated that. "Didn't you ask for that? Flirting with him before?" Brandi put her hands on his chest and shoved herself back from him.

"Excuse me?" She raised both her eyebrows high on her head. "Asked for it? It don't bother ya that he came up here lookin' to get me drunk n get in my panties. Shane laughed again, and she got out of bed.

"You're not wearing any panties" He smirked, sitting up. "C'mon Brandi, what do you think is going to happen here? You trying to put us head to head? 'Cause you know how that goes." She paced before him, backwards and forwards, not knowing what she wanted anymore.

"Nah, I ain't." She was, she knew she was and she knew it was a risk, and Shane knew her well enough to know exactly what she was doing. She put her head in her hands. "Maybe I am. I don't know." She looked at him, begging for help with her eyes and hating herself for it.

"What's the problem here?" Shane asked her "when does Brandi-Lynn Dixon ever not know what she wants?" Brandi sighed, she'd been lying to herself, her worst habit. She took a moment to think about it, what changed, what happened.

"Findin' Merle." She peeked through her fingers at Shane, now sitting up on the bed and staring at her intently. "It gives me hope, 'cause it makes me think Daryl could really be alive. N if I stay here, I ain't never gonna find 'im" she took a shaking breath, unsure what she was going to say, if she should say what she really thought. "But if I leave with Michonne tomorrow, ya won't come. N I never thought I'd rely on someone other than Daryl for anythin', n I hate that I do." She wasn't crying. She was thankful for that. She wiped her nose, which ran threateningly, but her eyes remained dry. She hadn't even dared think these things, even to herself. Where was all this sentimental shit coming from?

"I want you to stay. We got it so good here. But you're right. I can't guarantee if you leave tomorrow I'll come too." Brandi nodded a very finalising nod. Shane had confirmed everything she needed to know, all the answer she required was in those few words, the tone of his voice. She didn't matter to him as much as safety, maybe she never did. Fine. Whatever. He was just a bed warmer anyway, right?

So why did it hurt so much?

*****

In the morning she packed her things, Michonne had still not made an appearance and she was worried about her. Shane had slept soundly all night long while Brandi jumped and worried at every creak the old building made around them as it settled. She hadn't slept a wink, she was exhausted. She threw her pack over her shoulder and headed for the door. She reached the doorknob and Shane finally spoke. She didn't even know he'd woken up.

"You're really going." It wasn't a question, so she didn't answer, just stood with her fingers on the door handle. "Not even gonna say goodbye?" She swallowed loudly and lowered her head.

"Goodbye, Shane." She breathed, not even sure he heard, and pulled the door open.

She stepped into a sunlit street, people already milling around despite the early hour. She looked around herself, wondering desperately where Michonne could be. Sure she managed to leave Shane, but she couldn't go it alone.

She spied Merle, and he raced up to her.

"Gov'nor wants to see ya, sister." He narrowed his eyes. "Ya goin' somewhere?" She nodded

"Yeah, we're leavin' imma find Daryl and Michonne, well, Michonne will be there too." Merle shook hisbhead.

"Ooh baby sister, I tol' ya I was gonna find Daryl n bring him here, Y'ain't gotta go runnin' off into the sunset on y'own. Too dangerous. Ya get yaself killed" Brandi shrugged, irritated. The only person who hadn't asked her to stay was the one person she thought should.

"I survived so far. What does the governor want?"

"I ain't got no idea, but he said it was pretty urgent."

So she found herself at his door, and when he answered Michonne was behind him, held at gun point by one of the guards whose names Brandi hadn't bothered to learn.

"She came in here, stole her sword and threatened me. If you're going go. Now." The governor, Philip, she reminded herself, was absolutely fuming. Brandi scowled at him.

"It's her sword, how c'n she steal what's hers?" Philip didn't answer that question, but began ranting about something else.

"She unleashed and killed captive biters, set the whole town on edge, she's dangerous, I don't think you should go out there with her." Brandi snorted, sneered, and looked the man in the eye.

"Why the hell d'ya keep captive biters?" She wondered if Shane knew, if he'd go as wild as he had back at the farm. Probably not, because the governor would have a reason other than 'they might be people'.

"I have my reasons." The governor said cryptically.

But Shane didn't matter. Not anymore, if he ever had he didn't now.

"She's been good to me. More than anyone else. Let her go, we'll leave, this minute." She reached a hand forward for Michonne and Philip gave his man a nod, his man ten taking Michonne by the back of the neck and shoving her forward. She had her sword, and her things already packed.

"I'll make sure your weapons are at the gate." Philip said "I can't change your mind?" Brandi shook her head.

"No chance. C'mon Mich, let's get out of this place." They held hands and headed out, and Brandi thought she was going to make it all the way without another hiccup, without another problem.

But Shane was there, looking sheepish, he didn't have his things.

"Brandi?" She let go of Michonne, who eyed the guys on the wall suspiciously. Shane took her to one side and spoke to her very quietly.

"This is a suicide mission, you know that, right? I can't go because it's crazy." Brandi just let him talk. She'd said goodbye, there needn't be anymore. Everything he said last night just confirmed she was nothing to him, and what did that matter anyway? He was nothing to her, either.

"You can't leave" he said and Brandi went to speak but he stopped her "no one can. You'll be followed, and you'll be killed. Don't you understand yet?" Brandi frowned. "They have to kick you out. You don't get to walk."

"Shane that's nuts." He shook his head.

"I can't go because I want to live. I was hoping you did too."

"I do, just not here. If ya had any balls you'd be standin' here with ya shit packed, not standin' here beggin' me to stay in this shit hole." Shane looked at her very seriously for a long moment.

"I love you, you stupid redneck. How's that for nuts?" Brandi burst out laughing at that. Like she had no other reaction in the world to those three little words. She didn't really know what they meant, and she certainly didn't know how she felt.

Her only other reaction was to turn and walk away, which she did, on shaking legs that felt like they couldn't quite hold her weight, and with her heart hammering in her chest like it wanted to get out.

She took her Bow, quiver and knife from the guard, who then pushed the gate open just enough for her and Michonne to leave.


	33. Chapter 33

_He said he loves me and I laughed at him_. That was all that went through Brandi's head. _He said he loved me and I left._

"Don't look back." Michonne said quietly, placing her hand in the small of Brandi's back and pushing her forward a little quicker. Brandi guessed she must have slowed down, her mind in absolute turmoil. She didn't know how she felt about that, about herself for leaving like she did when Shane was exposing his innermost feelings that way. Would they be followed? If Shane believed that and meant what he said, he should have come. So, maybe it was ok she turned her back on him at such an intimate moment. She didn't know what love was, she loved Daryl, that was all she knew of it.

Maybe he was dying to get her to stay, say nice things, isn't that how guys got what they wanted in the time before? She wasn't sure about that either, if she was honest with herself, she had been pretty easy. She frowned to herself, _stop lying_ she thought, _Brandi ya were a straight up slut_. She scrunched her face up and stopped walking.

"It's a game to them," Michonne said, as if that might make her move. "The Governor told me you didn't want to leave anymore, maybe he was playing games with Shane, too, using him to get to you." Brandi frowned, hurt. Even if she'd thought that, hearing it out loud kind of sucked.

"He said he loves me." Michonne looked at Brandi with something akin to sympathy. At least it looked that way to Brandi. Poor little redneck, hasn't got a clue. She forced herself not to get angry, just swallowed it down with everything else.

"And where is he now?" Brandi sighed, Michonne was right, of course she was. It didn't stop Brandi feeling hollow and cold inside though. That someone would do that, say those things when they didn't mean them. Sure she'd had her fair share of guys, heck other girl's share too, she never told them anything to keep them close that she didn't mean. Fuck, she never wanted to keep any of them close any how. The idea that perhaps he meant what he said lighted in her head once more a little later. After jogging to keep up with Michonne, who was simply on a mission to get as far away as possible, she watched as her companion took down a single walker and began arranging it in some crazy pattern on the ground. Brandi watched her a moment, too lost in her own world to do anything.

"That's clever." Brandi said, looking at the body parts appraisingly. "It won't stop them, but it's clever." Michonne was looking at her narrow eyed.

"It'll make them stop to look at it, and we'll be waiting." She jutted her chin to a little growth of trees ahead of them. "We'll get them, over there." She began to walk and Brandi was torn. Her brother could be with them. She knew Merle was an ass but he was family. She watched as Michonne stopped and looked back, losing hope in Brandi.  
She looked again at the message Michonne had left.

Go Back.

Maybe she should, she looked at Michonne again.

"I'm sorry," she said, shaking her head with no idea what she'd do back at Woodbury. But If Shane knew what the place was, like he said he did, she might still be able to get around him, she might be able to prove to him how dangerous the place was. Captive walkers, she thought, Captive walkers would surely turn him to her way of thinking.

"Brandi?" Michonne tried, confused and hurt. Brandi was about to answer when she heard Merle,

"That little blonde chick, she my sister, ya touch a hair on her pretty blonde head and ya'll have me to deal with, y'hear?" Brandi threw wide eyes at Michonne.

"Please don't hurt my brother. I love ya, Mich, but I... I have to try." And she melded herself into the trees, not waiting for a reply from Michonne. She blended into her surroundings and crept quietly around Merle and his comrades, unseen, making her own way back to Woodbury, back to Shane. She cursed herself in her own head all the way, she was stupid, she was foolish, she was selfish and she was a coward.

But she had to try.

*****

When she was in sight of the gates of Woodbury she had refreshed doubts. The very sight of the tyres and corrugated steel had her heart aflutter in her chest, and again she felt torn, lost. If Shane was just playing a game, she was as good as dead. Staying with Michonne would have been her best bet, Merle would never hurt his baby sister. If Shane really did believe they couldn't escape the governor's walls unscathed she may have a chance to get him thinking straight again. And how dare she give up on him when he clearly, possibly, needed her most?

If.

It was a big fucking two letter word.

She took a steadying breath, which didn't actually help to steady her in the slightest, and ran forward, full pelt, into the sights of the guns above her. She waved her arms, and yelled for their help. She heard someone cry for the gate to be opened, and she darted through the gap created as soon as it was big enough for her to slip through.

"What happened?" A guard asked, a sneer and smugness to his voice that Brandi didn't care for.

"Walkers," she said, breathlessly as she could manage. "They cut me n Michonne off, so I, I came back." She swallowed, gulped, noisily, and looked around her. "Where's Shane?" The guards looked at each other, like they shared some secret knowledge she wasn't in on, and one of them pointed vaguely into the street.

"He's around, somewhere. We should get the Governor, before you start running around." Brandi frowned, but nodded, as one of these men went off to find Philip, and hopefully Shane.

"The wanderer returns." She turned to the governor's voice, sad not to see Shane by his side. She put on as despondant a face as she could

"It was awful." She said, feigning some kind of loss, she moved forward hesitantly, put her hands to her face, and suddenly Philip's arms were around her, calming her, stroking her hair. She sniffed dramatically, and let him think he was soothing her a little before moving back from him.

"Where's Shane? I'd really like to see him." For a split second, barely a moment recordable, a look of amusement crossed the governor's face. It was gone as quick as it came and Brandi wasn't sure if she'd actually seen it or made it up in her mind. 

"He's gone." He said gravely, and Brandi's initial thought was that something had happened and that Shane had died, the Governor's voice was so melancholy. She looked up at him, pushed him back from her a step. "Out side, gave you about five minutes before he apologised and came after you. You didn't see him?" Brandi's heart about shattered in her chest, She went cold from the inside out, and she felt her knees buckle. She didn't quite hit the floor, but she staggered like she was drunk, hands to her face, mind running with a chorus of  _what have I done, what have I done_  ? She shook her head at the Governor, 

"No, I... He left? He really left?" Did he? Had he? What could she believe, really? That Shane had run after the love of his life, or that shane was oushed out by these men to die alone. Perhaps sent with Merle to kill her... But perhaps The Governor would have told her that just for the kicks. "I gotta go out there, I gotta find him, Philip." He'd taken hold of her, stroked her hair again, trying to soothe her once more as she babbled about getting the hell out of there. She looked up at him, helpless, and his face was that of sympathy. 

"He's gone, you've just seen how bad it can get out there. You're safe now, come. Come with me, we'll take a drink, calm your nerves" He went to move her away by her arm, and Brandi turned to look at the gates one last time. 

She'd been sucked in, somehow the evil magic of this place had got her where it hadn't quite got Shane and Michonne. She hoped they'd find each other, that, at least, would be something to make it all worth it. Now she knew she was stuck, at least for a while, within the corrugated steel walls of Woodbury. Maybe someone would come, maybe someone would try and save her where she couldn't save herself.

*****

 

 

 


	34. Chapter 34

Brandi opened her eyes and squinted in the bright sunshine that filtered intrusively through the open slats of the wooden blinds in Philip's apartment. The guy could do with a blackout blind, or maybe just fabric curtains would be better.

She wondered when her thoughts had become so mundane and pointless. Her inner voice yelling these things so she couldn't hear the other things. The important stuff drowned out by the day to day, the futile, the worthless.

Nothing mattered. It had been three or four days, she guessed, though days merged together just lately, and no one was coming.  
She hated herself. Waking up in his bed, stinking of him, feeling grimy and dirty and slick with his scent on her skin and in her hair.  
But she had nothing else anymore, and dirty and grimy with _him_ was better than dirty and grimy alone.

Though she felt alone. Constantly he had meetings, private rendezvous, quiet whispered discussions with Merle who seemed suddenly busy and important. He'd grown more distant, though that wasn't saying much, only coming to her for sexual relief before sleep took his exhausted mind away for rest. Often she woke alone, just like now, with the sun invading her vision and blinding her against the horrors of what she was doing.  
She couldn't help herself. The only way she knew to make anything better was to hurt herself this way, and why lie to herself about that? She deserved to be treated like dirt after what she did to Michonne, to Shane.

The only positive she'd seen was that Michonne wasn't brought back dead, a trophy for Philip to hang where all could admire and worship it. That meant she could be alive.

And Shane.

She never let herself think about Shane. Not even in the small voice that tried to be heard in her head amongst the screams of irrelevance.

*****

As the sun set on Woodbury, and an eerie darkness began to creep in, Brandi was watching the stragglers move through the streets from the window in the governor's apartment. It had been a long day, she'd been asked by Philip to work an errand with Milton, which she didn't realise would just be her putting a knife through an old boy's head when he died and turned. A phenomenon Milton seemed to have never experienced before, and his inexperienced had almost caused his own death.

How could they possibly think that walkers were still human? It was beyond her, completely. Dead was dead, even when it wasn't.

Philip had tried to make it an excuse to touch her, hold her, soothe her, like she was an errant toddler. He knew she hated it, and it was his one power over her. At least, that's how she saw it. She wasn't sad, she didn't need looking after, by him or anyone else. She let him stroke her hair, and she squirmed and grimaced as he spoke in a soft singsong tone of voice. She was disgusting and she deserved to feel uncomfortable.

She heard a staccato of gun fire from the direction of the wall which made her ears prick up and her memories of the day fall apart like shattered glass. It was unusual to hear any kind of unsilenced firearms, though especially in the evening. Maybe one of the youngsters had got careless and overexcited.

But then there was yelling, and Brandi was moving before she realised she even intended to. She put her hand on her hip to check for her gun as she bent and grabbed her bow and quiver by the door. She was on the street in seconds, as the governor tried to calm a group of worried people who had gathered around him for direction.

"Sometimes biters get in through the side fence." He explained to her as she arrived "nothing to worry about and all under control." He told the few townsfolk to go home and stay calm, be quiet just like they always had, qbut then someone was screaming for help, and all Hell seemed to suddenly break loose.

The governor tried to get Brandi to go with him, to join in him in a meeting. He brandished the word terrorists and Brandi frowned, slipping down a dark side alley and waiting for him and his toy soldiers to disappear. That was when the smoke began to fill the streets, and the sound of semi automatic guns started in earnest.

She thought about the word Philip had used, and listened quietly from her dark corner. The gunfire was heading for the gate, these people were shooting their way out, not in. Perhaps they came for one thing, found it, and were off again. That made the quiet voice in her mind speak Shane's name, and she thought her chest might explode from the pressure she felt there. She squeezed her eyes closed, willing it to stop. Shane wasn't coming, these people were not there to do anything but cause chaos. Perhaps she could use that, and the smokescreen, to her advantage and make it out herself.

Would she be followed? Would she be caught up with these people she didn't know, maybe they'd take her hostage. She pondered that thought, almost rocking on her feet as she tried to decide what to do for the best, when she heard a roar of agony from the direction of Philip's apartment.

She crept out of her hiding place, the smoke began to dissipate, but the taste it left in the back of her throat did not. Maybe someone had finally seen Philip for what he was, and had done what she couldn't. With her bow and an arrow in her hand, just in case, she edged into the light thrown by the burning torches, inching her way forward, barely breathing. Once she was clear she looked both left and right to check her way was safe, and caught a familiar shape out the corner of her eye as she turned her head. He was, jostling or moving but was it...? Could it be? She slowly turned back, but it was gone.  
She shook her head as though that might clear it, there was no way, the smoke had messed up her vision, and the firelight in the street bounced off it like fog.

There was no way she had seen Daryl.

She smiled resignedly to herself, and began to head for Philip's apartment. No one was coming, no one would ever come. She'd hurt everyone who ever meant anything to her and this was her punishment, not even being able to run for the gate when the coast was clear and foggy and it would have been so easy to do so.

She didn't rush. The Governor in general made her feel despondent and worthless, being there in Woodbury made her feel insignificant. She stayed because there was nothing else. She was trapped and lost all at once, wondering if she wasn't coming down with a serious case of Stockholm syndrome.

She didn't sympathise with Philip, she didn't care for him much at all so she knew that wasn't the case. But she did wonder why she hadn't left amongst the chaos of the gunfight. It was the perfect time.

Perfect time to get hit by a stray bullet if nothing else.

She sighed sadly and walked in through the open door of Philips apartment, coming upon a scene that made no damn sense at all.

On the floor, cradling a dead child, was The Governor surrounded by the snapping heads of the disembodied dead. Blood was pouring from his face, water was pooling all over the floor.

"What the Fuck happened here?" She asked quietly, and Philip looked up, his face was thunder, and his right eye had a shard of glass poking out of it.

"Michonne." The governor said, his voice raspy and stricken.  
Brandi's heart stopped dead in her chest, and she couldn't breathe. Michonne was here, Michonne had come back. She was alive. "You let her in!" He suddenly roared, the rawness in his voice gone, leaving behind an angry, growling tone that shook her to her core. She tried to shake her head, but she couldn't seem to move. He dropped the little girl he held on the floor, and Brandi saw she had been a walker for a while before she was finally put out of her misery.

The governor was stalking, half blind, towards her, and she finally found her legs, making a quick exit knowing his depth perception would be off, and she could probably escape unscathed.

For now.

Her first thought, as she hit the street running, was to find Michonne, but she could be anywhere in the smoke filled landscape she'd found herself in. The noise of gunfire had gone, though the smell of spent gun powder seemed to cling desperately to the smoke. There was no denying what had happened there.

A few dead littered the floor, and she thought about putting them down properly, even reaching for her gun, but she was called away by a rough and unfamiliar voice, then she was grabbed by the bicep. She went to object, but was plunged into darkness before her hands were roughly pulled behind her and zip tied together, she heard the all too familiar sound of the ties being tightened. 

She was led... away, she was too disoriented to even know which direction. She listened carefully, thinking she could place herself that way, but all she could hear was her own panicked breathing.


	35. Chapter 35

She was put into a room, she knew by the sound of a door being opened, she was shoved in, stumbling over her own feet, and the door was slammed and locked behind her.

She sensed that she wasn't alone. The silence was punctuated with someone else's unsettled breathing, and the sound of their clothes rustling as they shifted, perhaps in fear, perhaps in defiance, when the door opened and closed again. The other person didn't speak, and they didn't move again. She was certain it was someone else held against their will, perhaps also bagged and zip tied. She assumed their captor was Philip, or at least, ordered by him. The invaders wouldn't have known her name, and wouldn't have locked their hostages on the grounds they had overrun and then tried to escape from. Perhaps biting off more ham they could chew. That's how it seemed, as they opened fire on the way out.

She hoped they got away. She didn't wish this life on anyone.  
She tried not to let her panic at being bagged and bound get to her. If this was the end for her, so be it. She could die safe in the knowledge that she couldn't hurt herself or anyone else anymore. Happy that Michonne had, at least for a while, still been alive despite Brandi leaving her. She took a deep breath to steady her breathing, which didn't seem to be listening to her thoughts, and had sped up so much she worried she'd hyperventilate.

*****

Some time passed. She couldn't be sure how much. She listened to the other persons calm breathing, and tried to match her own with it, envious that whoever it was could be so controlled. She couldn't. No matter what she told herself she couldn't remain calm. She never thought she'd die on her knees, maybe in a blaze of fire, a bike crash, a drunken fight picked with the wrong person. Not like this, blinded, unable to move.   
The door opened, a shadow was thrown across the room, and she was grabbed roughly from behind.   
She didn't even fight. She'd lost the energy, and despondently let whoever it was take her wherever they would. Her heart sank as she realised she'd given in.

She was taken to the arena, she could hear the yelling, the excited crowd, she could smell the walkers, and she could smell The Governor's cologne. It made her sick, more than any other scent, more than the rotten stinking foulness of the walkers hanging skin, more than the charred and putrid smell of their burning flesh when they burned the dead.

No.

That spicy sweetness that hit the back of her throat, cloying and gag inducing. The smell that clung to her own skin when he'd been on her, in her, all fucking over her.  
She resisted the urge to cough and splutter, she stood, waiting for whatever would happen, whatever these sick and twisted people were willing to watch done to her.

He obviously believed she'd let Michonne in. That was what this was, it must be.

She was held across the biceps, and her ties were snipped away. Still she didn't chance a move. She'd accepted her fate now.   
She zoned out, Philip was talking loudly and addressing his people about the terrorists, telling them he was afraid.

He'd never been afraid a day in his damn life.

"...worse because one of those terrorists is one of our own!" Brandi suddenly started paying more attention. She was right, they were going to kill her because of what Michonne did. "Merle!" Brandi's breath caught, she frowned under her blindfold. "He led them here, he let them in."  Brandi started to struggle, realisation hitting her like a tonne of bricks, but whoever had hold of her was too strong. "This is one of the terrorists, his own brother."   
Brandi made a noise like she'd been shot, a grunt as all the air in her body felt whipped away.

Daryl? Daryl was here?

Her legs tried to fail but she stood strong, unable to collapse being held as she was. She couldn't see, she started whimpering.

"Unmask me" but no one complied. She struggle some more, but it was painful to do so. The crowd started yelling that Merle and Daryl should be killed, and the governor set them on each other.

The disgustingly throat closing scent of Philip got close, and suddenly her head was unbagged. She squinted in the light of the flame torches around the arena, and caught Daryl's eye. He frowned, confused, and Merle punched him square in the jaw, yelling that his loyalties were with Woodbury.

"No!" Brandi yelled, casting her eye among the crowd, then back at her brothers.

Across the fighting stage, just beside the walkway where walkers were being brought in, was another bagged head, a blindfolded guy not held from behind like she was.

She'd know that physique anywhere, she'd know that wide expanse of chest even if it was all he had left.

Her legs gave way again, more successfully this time, and she took her captor with her as she went to her knees.

"Lemme go" she breathed as he tried to stand her up. He pulled her to her feet with ease, and she pulled at the restraining arms with a strength she thought had all but gone from her body. "Let me go!" She said more clearly,

"Stay here girl, you don't wanna be out there." She pulled against him, making her arms ache, trying so desperately to get away.

"Shane!" She yelled, unheard among the screaming townsfolk, under Philips chuckles. She looked at the governor, tried calling to him but he ignored her.

She stopped struggling, she rolled her head forward and braced herself, throwing it back as hard as she could into the face of her captor. She heard a yelp behind her and a satisfying crunch as her arms were instantly freed. She saw stars but she didn't care. She ran into the arena, dodging a biter which Merle then dutifully cracked in the face with his arm cuff. Daryl called her name but she didn't register it, darting for Shane and ripping off the pillowcase.

His face was black and blue, eyes swollen shut, nose busted in at least two places. She wondered if he could even see her. She stroked his curly head and he began to pull at his own restraints, his hands zip tied like she had been.

"'S'me Shane, 's'Brandi. Y'ok?" He opened his mouth to speak. But the the room filled with smoke and panic broke out.

The biters got away, Loping around after people, someone grabbed Brandi's hand and she was about to pull away until she saw it was Daryl.

"Dare?"

"No time." He said in a rush, "c'mon" she grabbed Shane at the wrist and dragged him too, and they ran through the smoke and noise together, out of the arena and straight into those who had opened fire.

Brandi almost stopped running, coming face to face with Rick and Maggie. Daryl dragged her by the hand again and they were running for the gate.

"You're not going anywhere with us" Rick yelled at Merle, who answered back with logic, now wasn't the time, they had to get out. She wondered if Rick had seen Shane, or if Shane had seen Rick. But worrying about them wasn't the priority. Getting out, that was the deal now, they could sort out the fall out when they were safely away from this place.

They squeezed through the fence, Rick sharing a look with Daryl who still had hold of Brandi's hand like a vice. Brandi didn't like the look on rick's face. He'd changed, he appeared harder, a look in his eye like he'd seen things, bad _bad_ things. She wondered briefly if anyone else was alive.

Sophia crossed her mind and her heart swelled at the thought.

They jogged on, and Daryl let go of her to stab a walker with one of his bolts. Shane limped along just behind her, she still had hold of his wrist, and he was clearly struggling.

As they entered the trees they slowed down, Shane weighing down in her hand.

"I can't" he said breathlessly, "I can't go with him." Brandi looked forward, Rick and Daryl had stopped and turned back.

"C'mon" she said, desperately, "just, just a little further n then... I dunno man, we c'n maybe sort shit out, but we gotta get away, c'n we focus on that?" Shane nodded, and they moved a little more, then Rick was marching forward. He placed a solid hand on Shane's chest and stopped him.

"Rick?" Brandi said, "c'mon, look at him, c'n we get away and sort this fuckin' mess out later?"

"I killed you." Rick said, sounding both aggressive and confused. "I... I killed you." He shook his head and rubbed his eyes like he might clear Shane from his vision, like he wasn't really there. Brandi felt panic trying to rise in her chest again and Shane pulled his arm away from her grip.

"You tried." Shane said, defensively, and Brandi rolled her eyes.

"Not now." Daryl said to them all, "ya wan' Merle to get back to Glenn n Michonne without us there?" It seemed to be what Rick needed to hear, and he turned after giving Shane a long look.

"Don' antagonise." Brandi said, "ain't gonna help ya none," she grabbed hold of him again, went to drag him forward but he resisted. "Shane Walsh I swear to god, move ya ass or I'll _kick_ ya ass. Jesus."

"He tried to kill me." Shane's words were muffled by his swollen mouth, but she understood perfectly.

"Yeah, like a million years ago." She yanked roughly at him again, and he finally, begrudgingly, moved.

She didn't know what was going to happen. Couldn't begin to guess. Was Lori alive? Did the baby survive? The outcome here depended on so many variables. Daryl mentioned Glenn and Michonne. Michonne would surely be on her and Shane's side, and there was no chance she'd want to share space with Merle.

Did they have a space, a safe place nearby, even? Would Michonne care that she'd survived?

So many questions and absolutely no answers, not until they faced this crazy situation head on.

She should have known what was going to happen though. As soon as they got to the safety of the road out of the trees, all hell broke loose.


	36. Chapter 36

As soon as they began to approach those left at the car, Michonne had her sword out, and Glenn pulled a gun from the back of his pants. Merle started chuckling to himself as Maggie tried to calm Glenn and Rick tried to talk Michonne down. Brandi stood on the sidelines with Shane, trying to blend into the trees as the shouting overwhelmed her. She wasn't used to loud anymore, being so quiet on the road for months, her ears were still ringing from the gunfire in the arena at Woodbury.

On top of everything else she was trying to come to terms with her two worlds crashing together. On one side, Merle, Michonne, and Shane, her older brother, her best friend in the world, and her lover. On the other side Daryl, Rick, Glenn and Maggie. People she thought she'd lost forever. Her family. Her twin.

"He tried to kill me!" Michonne hissed, point her katana at Merle but looking behind everyone to Brandi. " _He tried to kill me_!" She said more pointedly directly at her. Brandi just stood, clinging to Shane, in the shadow of the trees, not wanting to get involved. Wondering if maybe she'd wake up from this. It was too surreal.

Eventually Rick had enough, and turned and pistol whipped Merle into submission, knocking him clean out. Not before he mentioned her shacking up with the governor.

She heard herself whimper a little, pathetically, like a puppy. Shane squeezed her hand and it calmed her a bit. Some, but not a lot. This had all gone wrong, it wasn't the reunion she'd envisioned, and she wasn't sure what was going to happen next, wasn't sure if she wanted to just leave with Shane and try their luck alone. But after finding Daryl? That would be too hard. Her heart pounded in her chest as she fought the urge to just run. Rick looked half mad, Glenn was incensed, and Michonne kept looking to her as if she had the answers for this. She didn't, she didn't know what to do for the best, being stuck in that place, that little piece of a world long gone, had desensitised her. She'd lost all her usual instincts. She'd lost herself.

Glenn started a heated discussion again, hissing and sneering. Swearing and sweating. Calling Merle all sorts of names, Daryl jumping to Merle's defence, like he always did. Glenn was clearly very angry, but then he looked over Daryl's shoulder at Brandi and Shane, and he stopped.

Just like that.

Silence rang for a heavy few seconds between them all before Glenn started again,

"Is that Shane?" Everyone turned, and Brandi watched as Rick seemed taken off guard. He said to Glenn, just loud enough for her to hear.

"You see him too?" And she realised that before, Rick truly thought he was seeing an apparition. He honestly thought he'd stabbed Shane in the heart and he was gone for good.

"Yeah." She said, her voice sounding like someone else's. "It's Shane, so now what?" Rick looked like he'd taken a blow, he squeezed the bridge of his nose and shook his head like he was dizzy. Daryl even darted forward like he thought the man might fall to the ground.

"I killed you." Rick said again, turning to look at them both in the shadows, like he still didn't believe it. His blue eyes were distant, staring through them almost. "At the farm. I did. I... I stabbed you and you died." It looked like it was too much for Rick, and Brandi was at a loss with what to do about that. There was more going on than Rick thinking Shane wasn't actually there. She could see it in Rick's eyes as he stared through them, looking away and back again like he thought Shane might have disappeared.

"It's different now." Shane moved forwards dropping Brandi's hand and leaving her in the trees. "Things, they're different." He looked at Rick, really looked at him despite his puffed up face and bruises. "Ain't like I was then, man."

"I can't." Rick answered, not looking at him. "I can't have you back there." Shane's face dropped a little, and Brandi took a single step forward, with no idea what she intended to do. What did he mean he wasn't how he was? He wasn't so hot headed, for sure, but that wasn't the reason Rick stabbed him. Or at least, she didn't think so.

This was messed up.

"Shane?" She asked, but he didn't turn to her, he looked at Rick like he was the only other person there on the road.

"Rick." Rick looked at him, anger lighting his face.

"Lori's dead." Rick spat out. Not angrily, more like it was difficult for him to say the words out loud. "She was angry because I killed you and we barely spoke for eight months. I can't, I can't take you back there." Shane nodded, visibly swallowed and nodded again. He opened his mouth to speak.

"That ain't his fault." Brandi said, stepping forward and cutting Shane off before he started. "Ya can't expect us to do this on our own." Rick shook his head.

"Not all of you. Him," he pointed at Shane, and then at Merle "and him."

"Hey" Daryl interjected, "I can't leave him behind."

"N I ain't goin' anywhere without Shane." Brandi said. She grabbed his arm.

"Don't be stupid," Shane said to her "if they'll take you, you go." Brandi shook her head.  
"Without ya, n knowing my brother's out there, again? No." she turned to Daryl "I lost ya once, what'll it be, bro?" Daryl huffed a sigh, looked at Rick.

"Man, ya don't know"

"That's not what I'm suggesting!" Rick shouted, making them all stop in their tracks. "Daryl, we need you. I... I need you." Daryl shook his head sadly.

"It was always Merle n me, n now we got Brandi back. We'll take our chances. We, we'll try it alone.

"Daryl.." Rick didn't continue, and Brandi looked between them all.

"No them no me, that's all I c'n say." Daryl was grabbing some of his things from the car, Brandi looked at Michonne.

"He tried to kill me." she said again. Like it was the answer for everything.

"Just, one thing." Brandi said to Rick, who was white as a ghost and probably not registering anything. His eyes darted almost uncontrollably all around the area, looking for a danger that wasn't there. Not in that moment at least. "Sophia?" She asked hopefully. "Did she make it?" Rick nodded.

"Yeah" he said distantly. "She's gonna be upset, Daryl, what do we tell her?" Daryl shrugged.

"Just tell her the truth, Sophia'll understand."

*****

"Ya close?" Brandi asked as they began to head away, hardly believing that they were. She never thought she'd ever find anyone again, except maybe Daryl, but she also never thought she'd walk away if she did. "You n Sophia?" Daryl shrugged a little, clamming up like he did sometimes. Brandi took it as a yes. It made her feel a little better, until she realised she was walking with him away from the girl. God, she knew how to fuck things up. "Dare?" She asked, unable to bear the heavy silence between the four of them, it was worse than the cacophony of noise when everyone was shouting. "Did y'ever come back for me?" Daryl stopped walking, turned to her, and hesitated. "Don't lie to me." She said suddenly, thinking he might just to shut her up. She always knew when he was lying, and he knew she did. Twin thing was great sometimes.

"No. I wan'ed to, but we was always movin'. I didn't get a chance, Brand', I'm sorry." It was her turn to shrug, to clam up tight. He didn't come back. Shit, she probably never even crossed his mind. Not like Merle did. "I knew y'as alive. I knew ya was ok." It didn't make it better. She fought over and over with Shane about trying to find him, blazing rows that almost brought walkers into them. Bright hot pain burned in her chest but she suppressed it as best she could, trundling along silently beside her brothers, who may as well have been strangers, and Shane. She didn't know what to think anymore.

*****

"Ya slept with him." Shane said a little later when they stopped to rest. To rest him mostly, he was still swollen and maybe swelling more. Brandi rolled her eyes and shrugged her shoulders, still angry at Daryl but not wanting that to show.

"So?" She said to him, as if it didn't matter, hiding the fact that it killed her that he knew. Destroyed her, as if there was any part of her left to be. "Ya was fuckin' me n tryin' a get in Lori's underpants at the same time, what difference does it make?" Shane looked hurt, and Daryl span to face her.

"Brandi!" He hissed, a warning tone to his voice like he'd caught her in the middle of it. Like he was disappointed. She huffed a sigh and rolled her eyes again. She was disappointed in herself, but she wasn't done being mad with him.

"He tol' me ya was dead, Shane." She smacked the ground with the flat of her hand where she sat, emphasising his name with that cold hard clap. "That ya left n went afta me." Shane snorted as best he could.

"You believed that?"

"I didn't know what to believe! Ya'd jus' tol' me..." she stopped, her instinct to clamp her mouth shut, because Merle would laugh and joke and make light of it, the way he always did, and it was too hard. She couldn't deal with that, she closed her eyes, took a breath. "Things... n I didn't know what to believe. I thought he made ya say those things, to get in my head." Shane looked at the mud between his knees where he sat, like he didn't know what to believe either. Merle spat onto the leaf littered ground, which Daryl copied a moment later. Brandi suppressed the urge to laugh at that. Still copying big bro, the big brother who was never around. She sneered to herself.

"'Nuff'a the soppy shit. Jeez, I'mma 'bout to cry my li'l heart out" Merle stood and stretched his arms out, swinging them back and forward. "We're up shit creek without a pot to piss in n ain't no one gonna help us out but us. C'mon, le's get a move on 'fore the sun gives up on us, too, like officer friendly n the fuckin' Brady bunch already did."

*****

Merle sniffed noisily some time later, they'd had trouble hunting, Daryl thought they should try fishing instead.

"Smells to me like the Sawhatchee Creek" Daryl scoffed.

"Nah, we didn't go west 'nuff. There's a river down there it's the Yellow Jacket." Brandi rolled her eyes. This was going to turn into an argument, she could see it coming a mile off.

"Ya had a stroke, boy? We ain't never even come close to the Yellow Jacket!"

"We didn't go West!" Daryl insisted, and Merle turned to her as if she was the referee of the bunch.

"Ya believe this? Are ya hearin' this sonovva bitch?" She didn't answer, thinking the whole conversation was a useless waste of time, energy and breath. Even Shane frowned as they continued.

"We went south. That's what I think" Daryl mumbled, almost to himself.

"Wanna know what I think?"

"No!" Brandi said sharply. "No one wants to know what either a ya think, Jesus wept! It's a body a fuckin' water and we might be able to get a drink n hook a fish. That's what matters." She eyed Shane carefully beside her as Merle muttered something incoherent under his breath, earning an elbow in the ribs from Daryl.

Shane looked drained, his face was starting to look like his a little more than it had all day, but he looked worn, and tired. He hadn't said a word for hours, just bumbling along with them like a spare part. She reached out to him, but he looked at her face and shook his head. There was a lot on his mind, she could understand that, Rick had just dropped him again, he needn't take it out on her, but hey, she was every son of a gun's punching bag, right? She sighed to herself, wondering if the Yellow Jacket even fished. Merle was an ass and if he didn't know south when he was walking through the forest, then he didn't know shit and should keep his damn mouth shut.  
There was tension in the air all around them, and Brandi didn't know if it was Shane, Daryl and Merle, or her that was bristling the most. They all had their reasons to be on edge, though Merle was treating everything like a game.  
Then she heard the screaming, animal like cry of a kid.

"Ooooh those 'coons are havin' at it!" Merle said, laughing. Daryl looked at his older. Either with narrow eyes.

"Man, that's a baby." He said like it should have been obvious. Merle wouldn't know a baby if it bit him on the ass. Brandi thought about Lori's baby. She didn't know if it had survived. She eyed Shane sidelong, he seemed to be thinking the same thing.  
They broke out of the trees towards the noise, and found the Yellow Jacket. Brandi smiled a little victoriously on Daryl's behalf as her twin grabbed her arm and told her to stay put, out of harm's way as he ran to help the people whose crying baby led them there. People on the bridge being attacked by Walkers. Merle was up his ass, chasing Daryl towards the walkers and people, not giving her and Shane a second look. It was right they stayed behind, they had no weapons, but Brandi felt a little useless.  
She turned to Shane, who was looking even more forlorn,

"Y'ok?" She asked quietly. He looked at her and shrugged his shoulders.

"Lori died" he said shaking his head and burying his hands in his hair. Brandi thought, if he was shaven, he'd have rubbed his head. She hated that. So much tension and anguish in one little nervous tick. She chewed on her lip, wondering how to follow that up. Yes. She was dead, so all that shit with Rick, and nearly dying, that was for nothing. She looked at the bridge, Daryl and Merle could handle themselves, but she looked anyway, because there were people, and apparently people were more assholes now than before the world fell apart.

"Did the governor do that to ya face, or what?" She asked conversationally, not looking at him. Shane huffed a laugh, barely more than a puff of air, but he was smiling a little.

"Nah, got Martinez to work me over. You know, he did it cause I tried to leave. Thought it was some big ass conspiracy." He paused and watched the water as Brandi double checked on her brothers. The silence was loaded with all the things neither of them had the balls to say. It made Brandi feel claustrophobic, despite all the open air. "I'm sorry." He said quietly. "I'm, I was wrong. About that place, about a lotta stuff. I couldn't just sit back and let it all happen around me, in the end. The guy was crazy, and Rick... everyone with him is in danger. I don't think we should be out here, but he'll never let me help for what we did to each other." Brandi nodded, he was right.

"We fucked up" she said quietly.

" _I_ fucked up." Shane corrected her. "Everything I said was true. I lost Rick, I, honestly I thought he was gone. I used Lori, and I don't know if she thought it was more, _I_ dunno if _I_ did." He paused, scratched his eyebrow with his thumb. "Then I just tried to wind him up, get him to see he was acting crazy." He sighed to himself. "Now look at us." Brandi thought Rick _was_ crazy. That look in his eyes was more than just disbelief that Shane was standing before him, large as life. 

She couldn't elaborate on that thought, though, Merle and Daryl came crashing back towards them, both scowling and cursing to themselves. The tension between them had risen to heady heights, and Brandi saw a fight breaking out.

It did, and it was a doozie.


	37. Chapter 37

Brandi glared at her brothers as they started shouting their mouths off, Merle going nuts because Daryl had endangered himself for the sake of a bunch of latinos they didn't know, Daryl swearing that they had had a damn baby and needed help.

It was like coming home, and she hated it. The memories still sore enough to make her angry, and sad, and leave her feeling violated all over again. Merle was looking a lot like daddy just recently, with his broadening nose and high forehead, and if he so much as raised his hand to Daryl she wasn't sure she'd have any control over her own actions. Her eyes darted around for danger, in case Walkers heard, but really she was focussing on Merle, waiting for him to make one wrong move.

Shane was still staring at the river, no longer the type of guy to jump in and get involved, even to break them up. No longer a cop. Brandi reckoned he'd leave them to tear each other's throats out before he tried to help. It wasn't his fight, which made sense, and he had his own shit going on, Rick, Lori, the up in the air, elusive, 'did-it-or-didn't-it' baby.

Jesus fucking Christ.

She rubbed her face and ran her hands through her hair and down her neck. Her brother's argument, Shane's self involvement, neither of those things was finding them a place to sleep before nightfall. She turned to the water, watching the reflection of the trees as they wavered on its surface. Merle and Daryl were starting to get shrill, and she span around to them, to tell them to quit it, and act their damn ages.

But there was a scuffle, a blur of movement, and Daryl was on the floor.

Without a thought she launched herself at Merle, landing on his back and clawing at his shoulders.

"Leave him alone ya piece'a shit!" But he didn't react. He was staring down at Daryl, whose shirt had ripped open, and the slashes of pink skin left from years of feeling the brunt of Daddy's belt and fists were out in the open.

Brandi slid off Merle's back and ran instead for her twin, trying to cover him back up. He never showed his scars. Not even to her if he could help it.

"I...I didn't know" Merle was saying, and Brandi span to him and hissed.

"'Course ya fuckin' did. He beat ya black n blue, ya think he'd leave Daryl alone?" Merle scoffed.

"N you c'n shut ya damn mouth, daddy's fuckin' princess, what would you know?"

"It's why ya left, right?" Daryl said, straightening. "Brandi left too, remember?" Brandi was stunned at the tears in his voice, the wetness at his eyes.

"I'd'a killed him if I didn't go!" Merle yelled, as though Daryl was blaming him for what happened, missing Daryl's point completely, which Brandi was quite happy about.

"Then maybe ya should'a stayed" Brandi said simply, rubbing Daryl's back across the shoulders, feeling his pain and embarrassment for him.

"Shut up Brandi, ya don't know shit about it. Ya didn't know what Will was like, what he was _really_ like." Brandi huffed a laugh and turned to her big brother, narrowed her eyes and went to open her mouth. Daryl grabbed her arm and dragged her back behind him, he squared up to Merle, got in his face, and Brandi could only watch.

"She got the worst of it!" He pointed, "she... _worse_ , Merle, worse for her." He shook his head. "I'm outta here. C'mon Brandi-Lynn, let's go." He grabbed her arm and she just about managed to call for Shane as she was dragged away.

"Where ya goin'?" Merle asked carefully, what Daryl had said maybe sinking in.

"Back where I belong, n I'm takin' these two with me. Rick'll come round. He's just... he's in a dark place." Shane caught up, shook his head slightly.

"I dunno, man, he was pretty clear." Daryl shrugged.

"We'll make him see." He continued to march the way they had come, never putting a foot wrong. Merle would do well to listen to him, Brandi thought, Merle was losing his touch.

"Y'ok?" Shane asked her and she nodded and shrugged all at once.

"Yeah, no? I don't know. Ain't news to me that my dad was an asshole. Din't realise it was news to Merle." Shane lay a hand heavily on her shoulder, and squeezed it gently. "N you?" She asked him. But the only answer he gave was to drop his hand from her shoulder and sigh. She wanted to ask him a hundred questions, but didn't know where she would start. He didn't want to talk about it, that much was pretty clear just in his demeanour, rounded slack shoulders, eyes fixed pretty much on his old worn out boots. She placed her hand on his bicep, offering a little comfort in the only way she knew how.

If anyone should be turned away from Rick and his group, it was her. She'd confused Shane, cornered him and tried to make him admit to things that he wasn't even sure he was feeling. She folded her arms across her chest, and Shane looked at her, wondering where she'd gone. They were walking into the unknown, here. She waved Shane's eyes away, uncomfortable under his solemn stare.

"Whatever happens, Brandi, we're in this together, right?" She nodded, but didn't reply. She wasn't about to leave Daryl again, but she'd agree for now, if it got him moving. He couldn't be out there in his state, he was still limping, shuffling. If they came across a herd right now, who knew what would happen?

*****

Merle caught up, and stayed quiet, and the tension around them had dropped almost all the way. The air was still abuzz with something, but she was pretty sure that was just her and Shane now. His uncertainty, and Brandi just being Brandi.

The gunfire started shortly after Merle rejoined them, and Daryl had them all crouching in long grasses, waiting for something.

"That's the governor." Merle said knowingly, but he stayed quiet and did as he was told otherwise.

"Brandi," Daryl said "take this" he held his buck knife out for her, and she took it without a word. "I'mma go see what's goin' on, you stay low, I'll signal ya out, don't move until I tell ya, ya get all ya selves killed, or worse." No one questioned him, Daryl's air of authority was brand new to all of them and if nothing else they were stunned into submission. Brandi felt her heart racing along in her chest, and willed it to slow down, as Daryl crept toward the noise.

When he didn't come back, and the popping of guns continued, Brandi almost chased him down, but Shane and Merle both put their hands on her shoulders, one either side, and held her down. She looked at Shane, who narrowed his eyes, and then at Merle who pursed his lips in a hushing gesture.

As the gunfire died off again, and they heard engines start, Daryl gave a whistle, and the three of them were on their feet. She wasn't sure what Shane would do, with no weapons, and being lame as he was, but he lifted a walker clean off its feet as he darted forward, throwing it out of his way. Brandi landed on it almost immediately and stabbed it with Daryl's hunting knife. She looked up and noticed Rick struggling with walkers, just outside the gates of a prison, and Daryl expertly shot one with a bolt through the head as Merle darted forward and beat another to death with his fake arm. A walker was creeping up on Shane who limped along ahead of her and she yelled at it.

"Hey asshole!" And it turned, approaching her slowly with its arms stretched out. Shane turned and gave her a nod as the walker fell to the floor after she stabbed it in the temple.

"Thanks" he said breathlessly, his limping getting him next to no where, she slung an arm under his and he clung to her shoulder, and she dragged him closer to the prison fences as quickly as she could as Daryl and Rick downed the last couple of biters, and Rick turned and saw them coming.  
Shane faltered but she dragged him forward,

"Don't wuss out on me now, Walsh." She said, effort making her voice sound strained, and it elicited a short gasping laugh from him, and he hobbled a little quicker with Brandi holding him up.

As they approached Rick gave Shane a long look, his eyes unreadable but focussed. He gave shallow dip of his chin to the two of them, then turned and watched the walkers who were taking over his backyard.

*****

"I'm in charge here." They'd entered the prison grounds in heavy silence, Carl running forward to check on his dad.

Brandi was stunned by how grown up he appeared, but she remained silent. A lot had gone on in this place and with these people she now barely knew.

Now they were inside the oppressive feeling building, and Rick had been laying down some ground rules for the new comers.

"What I say goes. That is my son, and my daughter, and in the chain of command you are at the bottom. The bottom! Lower than Judith. You understand?" His blue eyes were wide and darting, but he focussed the most on Shane. Shane nodded solemnly, not answering out loud. Rick stared at him for a long moment, before turning and leaving the cell block.

Brandi reached out and touched Shane's arm, his muscles were tense, almost vibrating. He hadn't met anyone's eye since they'd turned up, except Rick's, who he seemed determined to get on side.

Brandi looked around her, everyone was staring at them, these new unknown beasts. She spied Sophia, who hid quietly behind Hershel's younger daughter, whose name escaped Brandi in that moment. She didn't know these people anymore, and she felt extremely out of place, even with her brothers, Shane and Michonne there with her.

"I know what you all must be thinking." Shane said to the floor. No one answered, they all just stared like horns had sprouted out of their heads. "I want you to know it wasn't what you thought." He shrugged, still not meeting their eyes. "I ain't like I was." Brandi looked at him, tried to meet his eyes, and he looked up under his brows at her. She gave him a closed lip smile and he took a deep breath.

"We all changed." Hershel said finally. "This world, it can get to you." Shane huffed a puff of air sharply from his mouth.

"You're telling me" he said, gently touching his own swollen face.

"Come on, you and Michonne come with me, you both need medical attention. Maybe you can fill me in."


	38. Chapter 38

Maggie showed Brandi to cells they could use up on the mezzanine floor. She was pensive, quiet, as they walked through C block.

"The beds can barely fit two," she said with a sad smile. "But if you're huggers you'll be fine." Brandi laughed at that. She was not a hugger, in the slightest. Though it didn't escape her that Maggie was shrewd enough to notice her and Shane were more than just surviving together.

Maggie stood at the cell door as Brandi sat on the bed, testing it out. She looked at the girl, she seemed so sad.

"What happened with Shane?" She asked eventually, not meeting Brandi's eye. "I mean, what do you think, cause no one else was there, right? We only have their word." Maggie's voice was accusatory, Brandi shrugged.

"Does it matter?" But Maggie met her gaze suddenly.

"Of course it does. It makes a world of difference." Brandi nodded. Perhaps it did. If they could piece together their separate stories they could see how this prison sharing idea might go down. That, and Maggie was probably looking out for those she saw as her family, against those that were clearly not anymore.

"Shane told me he was lookin' to get closer to Rick through Lori. Like, after he thought he died." She sighed, gave a half shrug, "then that went all to Hell, n he developed feelings, Lori did too." Brandi hated admitting that, making herself feel like the non refundable forfeit. "She played 'em against each other. I dunno why. I guess we never will." Maggie nodded.

"And the fight they had?" Brandi chewed her lip, she still wasn't sure about that herself.

"Rick'd made up his mind that Shane was tryin' to take over, steal his family, n get rid of him." She shook her head "the way Shane tells it Rick got it wrong, weren't himself, he still don't seem to be." She added pointedly, looking at Maggie who leant against the door frame with her arms crossed, taking it all in.

"Why's he so much meeker now?" She questioned, and Brandi shook her head. God what a question. Because everything he touched turned to dust? In the last nine months nothing had gone the way he thought it would. The farm collapsed and his best friend tried to kill him, and it just went down hill from there.

"Everythin' we thought, every turn we took, was not what he thought it would be. From Rick n the farm right up to now. He's been broken down a hundred times. I guess he's givin' up. He definitely lost some of his spirit." She stopped. She shouldn't be telling Maggie this, she barely knew the girl anyway and, it wasn't her story to tell. She smiled a closed lip smile and shrugged her shoulders. Maggie gave her a nod.

"Rick's, struggling." She said at length. "The world seems full of ghosts. I know we ain't got much, but he needs time. I guess you're tired. Get some rest. I'll send Shane up when he's finished with daddy." She went to leave, but turned after a short hesitation.  
"I can't guarantee you can stay." She shrugged "I hope you can. I hope the others see what I see."

Brandi listened to Maggie's steps echoing away for a while, not realising the noise had stopped for a long time after it did. She looked around the cell, 6 feet by 8 of a grey/green colour not entirely dissimilar to the skin of the walkers. It made her blood run cold through her veins. She lay instead at looked at the bunk above her, feeling claustrophobic with the upper bunk so close. She couldn't have Shane sleeping up there, his weight would have his shoulders almost in her face. She'd have to take the top bunk.

She sighed, she never thought she'd end up in a damn prison, Dixon or not, Even her college dorm had been bigger than this, and a better colour, too. She didn't even want to acknowledge the brownish red streak on the wall here next to her head, smeared and faded, but nonetheless recognisable as blood. A larger streak smeared the floor right up to the cell door.  
None of these things should have been at the forefront of her mind, but she would rather think of anything other than the real pressing issues. Rick, and Shane, Michonne and Merle, living under one roof. Was it possible? Rick had seemed to have so far accepted that Shane was part of this now, even if he did so with clear qualms. His reservations weren't all completely unfounded, either. Shane had been an a class dick. He wasn't the same, she thought about all the changes, all the things that had picked away at his hard assed exterior and finally wore him down. She hoped he could come back up again. She hoped he wouldn't stay this big silent shadow.

Then there was Philip, who had released walkers into this place, clearly as a warning. He was going to be a problem. After Michonne killed that kid, perhaps his daughter once upon a time, he was going to be out for blood.  
Rick seemed in no state to deal with that, but surely he could have his nervous breakdown later?

At some point she fell asleep, waking up to yelling down on the ground floor.

*****

It was morning, clear by the way the light fell in through the barred prison windows, she made her way quickly down the metal steps from the mezzanine floor her cell was on, trying to ignore the way they groaned and moved under her feet. Merle was whinging, she wondered what about, not that he needed a reason.

"We should'a slid outta here last night n lived to fight another day!" He gave a chuckle. "But we missed that window of opportunity ain't we?" Brandi hit the ground floor and saw Merle had been locked up on his own. Around the door everyone stood, apparently discussing how they could move forward now they had such a psychopathic enemy. She caught Shane's eye and he looked away. He was standing a little way away from the others, on his own at the back of the group. Brandi wondered where he had slept, if he had, and why it hadn't been on the cell with her.

Everyone looked incredibly worried, except Merle and the stupid grin on his face, and Rick who still seemed separated from reality, his eyes still distant and unfocused.

"We're not leaving" Rick hissed through gritted teeth, a venom to his voice which had Brandi almost taking a step back. This was a Rick she'd never met, not even in recent days. He'd clearly fought for this place, hard. She could understand he wouldn't want to give it up.

"That truck through the fence thing 's'just him ringing the dinner bell." Merle started. Brandi rolled her eyes.

"Hush up Merle." She said, almost to herself.

"We ain't scared'a that prick." Daryl spat. Casting his eyes over the group swiftly, settling his dark navy irises on hers. Brandi gave him a shallow dip of her chin. Merle had the audacity to laugh again.

"Well, ya should be."

"We aren't leaving. Then he's won!" Brandi eyed Glenn carefully, he was different too, sure he was all sorts of angry right then, but he was much more sure of himself, more confident. It was hard to believe this was the same Glenn who had fallen over his own feet looking for Sophia, and had been so upset by Rick's admission that he would kill Randall for all their sakes. She wondered if he still stuck by those old school morals. Maybe. The world couldn't have changed them all that much, could it?

She looked at Shane again, shrunk to the back of the group, looking at his feet. Or maybe it could.

She chewed her lip. All around her the conversation was getting heated, and Rick stormed off, or tried to. He was stopped by Hershel. She looked at Shane again, and gestured he leave with her. She couldn't sit and listen to them all argue. Her say wouldn't help anything.

Shane followed her up the stairs and stood at the door to the cell she had spent the night in.

"Cosy." He said, and she shot him a withering look.

"Better'n tryin'a sleep in a car." She countered.

"or in one of those trailers" he smirked at her. She was glad to see it, but the potential dig at her background didn't bypass her completely. In truth they'd stayed on a quarry site, a portable building with a hole in the floor the only refuge. One of them always awake in case the dead discovered that hole, constantly cold as whipping winds blew through. They had nothing but a tatty old blanket between three of them. Michonne's two walkers were enough to keep others away, but it was a tough couple of days and nights, but they did it, and they survived. They had as much right as anyone else to be exactly where they were.

"Been thinking a lot." He said to her, edging into the room and taking up a space beside her on the lower bunk. Brandi wasn't sure if it was a question, a confession, or an observation, so she didn't reply. He cleared his throat awkwardly, hesitantly, and Brandi wondered what he wasn't saying. "That baby girl:-"

"Don't" she cut him off. Why did he have to keep doing that? Bringing up the past like it meant anything anymore. Rick had let them in. Why try and mess that up with hushed whispers that could echo around this empty building right to his ears?

"Rick ain't right." Shane said, changing the subject, and Brandi nodded her head. Understatement of the century. She looked around the room, trying to ignore the blood spatters, the clear drag marks of a body removed. What was it, when it was killed? Man or beast? She didn't think there was a difference anymore.

"Rick's in a bad place. He jus' lost his wife and now he finds a villain on his doorstep." She shrugged with one shoulder. "Ya can't say ya'd be any better. Fuck, ya could be even worse." Shane snorted a laugh, his smile sloppy and lopsided. It didn't last long. He frowned a little, his eyes focussed on the bloody drag marks in the middle of the floor that Brandi had seemed so enraptured with. His brows knitted together and his mouth now a thin straight line.

"I can't believe she died. Rick said they weren't speaking, I did that." Brandi nodded.

"Ya did, but it's about time we all deal with that n move on." Shane sighed and scratched his eyebrow, face still contorted into a frown.

"I need time, Brand," She laughed, she didn't mean to. It bubbled up from her gut and burst forth from her mouth unbidden, and she barely stopped herself from clapping a hand over her mouth. Shane's eyes shot to her, narrow and confused.

"Y'ain't had 'nuff? It's been nearly a year, 3 months a that was ya cursing that man's name. Jesus Shane." She stood up sharply, narrowly missing the top bunk with her head. She stormed from the cell, flew down the stairs in a huff. She thought he was over this, but now it was all stirred up again. 3 months he was in a bitter twisted mood, taking crazy risks and putting himself in danger, feeling guilty and sad and angry. 3 months of worrying after him and chasing him down whenever he did something stupid. Then one morning he woke up, wrapped his arms around her as she stirred, and pulled her close, as Michonne stood over that damn hole in the bottom of the 12 by 7 building they'd holed up in.

And it was over, just like that. He held her and drifted in and out of sleep, and by the time he really woke up, he was different. Not as different as he eventually became, but different enough. Better.

Of course, things got out of hand, and he turned into the quiet shadow of his former self, and she'd have preferred something in the middle, a middle ground, if such a thing existed.

Now it all came crashing back with a bang, smacking them all up side the head, and things were different, everyone was different, and Brandi wasn't sure if she liked it, if she trusted them anymore. Shane so clearly wanted Rick and him to go back to how they were before Rick was shot, presumed dead, but Brandi couldn't shake the feeling that Rick just needed to make up his numbers.


	39. Chapter 39

She stormed outside and found her brother smoking a cigarette, leaning against the prison's outer wall. Walkers littered the grass beyond the chain link, and Daryl's eyes scanned the distant horizon, seemingly not seeing them. He held out his smokes without looking at her, and she took one, fiddling with it before attempting to light it with a shaking hand. They stood in silence for a few minutes as she smoked it to the nub, and though she shook involuntarily, the silence between them was easy. She leaned beside him, against the rough brick, with a sigh after she stabbed the filtered end into nothing with her worn and tired boot. 

"what's goin' on, Brand?" Daryl asked, as if she'd know what he was asking about. When she didn't answer immediately he turned and looked at her. Brandi daren't look back. She was still so upset with him. Her brother, _her twin_ , had left her for dead, just like Shane said he had. She sighed resignedly as Daryl spoke again, seeming annoyed that Twin Thing wasn't working. 

"I knew y'as alive. I said that already. What d'ya want from me?" Brandi just sighed sadly again.

"Seriously? That's ya excuse? Ya refused to stop lookin' for Merle, 'cause he's family ya said. What the fuck am I, Dare?" It was Daryl's turn to sigh, though his was more harsh, a sharp puff of air as he thought to himself how Merle needed someone to look for him. Brandi-Lynn had always done well on her own.  Brandi scrubbed at her eyes, pressing the heels of her hands into the sockets hard, to try and stop the pointless tears. Water she couldn't afford to waste.

"Did ya even consider it?" She asked quietly, and Daryl chewed the inside of his cheek, leaning his shoulders against the outer wall of the prison cell block again.

"Yeah." he said eventually. "Yeah. I mentioned it to Rick. He said ya was bound to be long gone, and that ya'd be ok. I believed it.” He huffed a puff of hot air and sank down to his haunches, dangling his hands between his knees. "We hadta keep movin'. Lori was pregnant." He sounded apologetic, and Brandi sank down next to him, scooting close and resting her head on his shoulder. "I had Sophia..." He rubbed his face with one hand. "I hadta trust ya was OK. N I did, n ya was." Brandi wrapped her hands around his forearm, still resting on his knee

"OK" She said quietly. "Don' leave me again." Daryl nodded sheepishly before resting his head on hers.

"I won't." Brandi sighed again, feeling like her breath wasn't filling her lungs properly.

"Now what?" She asked him, gazing out at the ambling undead, groans floating across the distance to her ears. The sound of life now, the theme tune of the world.

"Rick's strugglin'," he echoed Maggie's words, "he already scared a buncha newcomers away 'cause a his ghosts. I'm surprised he let you, n Merle, n Shane in, but what could he say? Ya practically saved his life." Brandi hummed softly. It wasnt how she remembered the previous day, Daryl had a bad habit of singing her praises all too enthusiastically. From what she remembered she had saved Shane, and since they'd got here they'd done nothing but have firm words. She felt she didn't know him anymore, so what was left? She didn't know Merle and Daryl at all anymore, this strange creature of authority Daryl had turned into was unexpected, and though no doubt well deserved, it wasn't something she thought he'd cope with well. People looking to Daryl Dixon for answers? She couldn't see it.

"Shane's really wantin' to get in Rick's good books. We'll never know what happened on that farm, but I believe there was a misunderstandin' somewhere along the line." Daryl lifted his head from hers and fiddled with his fingers

"If Merle's right:-

"He is:-

"Then we need to do somethin'." Daryl angled his head to look down at his sister. "How well ya know 'im?" Brandi looked up at Daryl and shrugged her shoulders, letting his arm loose and sitting away from him.

"No more'n anyone else." She replied curtly, looking away. "Why?" It was Daryl's turn to shrug, his gesture so similar to his sister’s, their facial expressions a perfect mimic.  Brandi could see he had an idea forming, and she wasn't sure she was going to like it. Still, she had missed this, sitting, just the Dixon Twins, shootin' the breeze and just _being_ together. 

"Thought Merle said y'as closer'n that." His face was serious, but Brandi knew him well enough to hear the contempt in his voice. He'd always hated the thought of her being a _woman_ and having _needs_ it downright disgusted him. Brandi rolled her eyes and folded her arms, resting them on her knees. More of the dead had reached the fences, making a noise like something from a horror movie. 

"Ain't somethin' I wanna revisit." she said, resting her chin on her folded forearms. "I c'n still smell him on me n it makes me sick." She watched as Daryl grimaced, swallowing something that appeared to taste vile. She used to enjoy making him squirm, but all thoughts of the governor, and _what she let him do to her_ , were enough to make her vomit. His too soft hands on her too willing skin, his hot breath in her face as she tried to turn her head away and think of other things, being somewhere else. The things that had worked with daddy, the places she used to escape to in her mind after their mama died, they didn't seem to work anymore, and though she refused to cry, when her body convulsed and betrayed her succumbing to the friction, she could have easily ripped the governor's throat out.

But she'd lost the will. She didnt know how or when, but it had happened not too long before they all escaped. 

"I'm jus' gettin' myself back together." She pleaded at Daryl, and he nodded, chewing his lip, looking ready to kill someone.  

“Fine,” He said quietly, sullenly, “we’ll think’a somethin’ else.” Brandi turned her face to him, her eyebrows knitted together.

"I ain't doin' this to spite ya, Dare." She spat, anger bubbling in her chest. Daryl huffed a humourless quiet laugh, and Brandi shot up to her feet, looking down on him, her shadow covering his whole body. "Ya really wan' me to go back to him? Ya jus' found me, don' that mean shit?" Daryl slowly looked up, his face serious. She wondered again if she could trust these people anymore, even her twin. Shit she weren't even sure what to think of Shane now, and how did Michonne feel about her since she disappeared on her, and headed back to Woodbury? 

"Don' be selfish" he said loudly, not quite shouting, but forceful nonetheless. "This ain't jus' about you. Or us, or Shane. This ain't no time to look out for yaself. Don' ya know what we did there? Din't ya see what _he_ did _here_?" Daryl got to his feet, stepped in close so he and Brandi were almost nose to nose. She refused to back away from him, but there was definitely a fire in his eyes she hadn't seen before, something passionate, and caring, lie deep behind those narrow peepers. She felt her face soften, her shoulders slump. When Daryl felt so strongly about something, it was usually right. She gave him a shallow nod.

"Fine," she sighed, stepping back and looking at him, "what would'ya have me do?" 

* * *

 The whole group sat together in the rec room, eating a tightly rationed breakfast of mush which could only be called oatmeal with a huge amount of imagination. Brandi watched Sophia, sitting next to Daryl, Hell practically in his pocket, on a small set of steps that led to a door to her right. The girl kept watching her inquisitively but hadn't said so much as a word to her. She scanned the rest of the group, a sigh threatening in her chest, but she held it back. Huffing and puffing weren't going to help anything. 

"No TDog" she noted quietly, as Beth walked passed with the baby in her arms. The baby who looked remarkably like Shane. She pulled her eyes away and looked at Shane beside her, who was looking a Hell of a lot better after a good night's sleep on the top bunk in their cell. He caught her eye, face telling her to be quiet and not say anything stupid.  "What?" She said sharply. "Ain't no one talkin', ain't no one sayin' nothin'. Cause we ain't been here we don't get to ask what happened to our friends?"

"Family," Glenn corrected sharply. "We're family." Brandi nodded gently.

"N we're the outcasts?" she asked, eyes wide, eyeing Daryl specifically. He shook his head imperceptibly, so shallowly that no one would notice unless they were looking for it. 'Hush ya mouth', that little head shake said 'Don' spoil this before it's started' "Ya left us behind, now that ain't our fault" Brandi continued, noting that Rick wasn't around either. Their leader, succumbing to his demons. Christ this group were falling apart, they would be screwed against the governor at this rate. Daryl was right, she had to help them any way she could. the question for her then was how. How to get the governor back on side? She knew one way, it had never failed her yet, but was she willing to literally put herself out there again? 

She looked around at the people who she thought used to be her friends, people who had been on her mind almost daily since they split up all that time ago. She looked at their despondent faces. Maggie and Glenn barely looking at each other, Carl just staring at his gruel, Hershel quiet and one legged, Sophia eyeing her suspiciously from around Daryl’s form. Michonne, hurt, still limping and wounded, and Shane, well.

She hadn’t done this to them. It wasn’t on her, but she could fix it. Shane wouldn’t like it, but it weren’t up to him. He’d already betrayed her once, anyway.

She spooned the last of her breakfast mush into her mouth, and declared loudly.

“Me n Daryl had a conversation last night.” She said, swallowing and wiping her mouth with her sleeve. She didn't miss Shane's head darting up, eyes sharp in her direction, but she ignored them. If they were to get their family back together, as family, if Shane wanted Rick to be his brother again, if they wanted even a chance of that, she had to do this. "We discussed a way I could possibly get ya in with Philip:-" 

"Brandi:-"

"I can't guarantee it'll work," she continued, ignoring Shane, ignoring all the eyes boring into her. "But I'm willin'." Shane scoffed at that, stood up hard enough for his chair to hit the concrete floor with a clatter, causing Judith to startle and start to cry. Beth rolled her eyes and jostled the kid in her arms as Shane stomped away shaking his head. 

“Y’ain’t gotta sleep with him.” Daryl had said, and though Brandi had thought about it, she’d decided she wouldn’t have to. But Shane hadn’t heard the conversation, and had made up his own mind. 

Daryl wanted to speak to Rick, let him know what they had planned. 

Merle, in his cell looking into the Rec room, was cursing and foaming at the mouth. 

“Ya’d send our baby sister back in there?” He asked Daryl, and Brandi huffed a laugh at him. 

“I c’n Look Afta myself, Merle.” She rolled her eyes as Merle pointed a finger through the rusted bars of his cage. 

“Ya’ll get ya self killed, baby girl. Gov’nor ain’t gonna let ya back in.” Daryl and Brandi shared a look, a small smile. They had a plan, and though she may not be privy to all the ins and outs, she’d be let back in. Without a doubt. 

“You sure you’ll be ok?” Michonne asked, voice quiet and words rolling quickly from her lips. Brandi leaned forward and took Michonne’s hand. 

“Yeah” She said, pausing to wet her lips a little. “Mich:-

“It’s ok” Michonne cut her off “I know why you did it. I understand.” Brandi squeezed Michonne’s hand in her own, sniffing slightly, hoping her stupid eyes would stay dry, wondering when she’d become so sentimental and weak. 

She didn’t fail to notice everyone’s eyes on them, between very telling looks at each other. Not Glenn and Maggie, they still seemed fractured, and Brandi couldn’t dwell on that, she needed to put her and Daryl’s plan in place. Soon. Or they’d lose the opportunity completely. 

She wished Shane hadn’t left, that she could talk to him before he got the wrong idea, but it might not be possible if he was going fly off the handle. She took a breath.

”I need a weapon, gov’nor took all my shit” she said to Daryl. He nodded and stood. Sophia following suit. 


	40. Chapter 40

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's been so long. My muse has been off gallivanting and just came back recently.
> 
> Growing a baby might have something to do with it? Not sure. How does the name Dixon suit for a baby girl, do you think? Hahahaha maybe not ;)

The weapon's cache was inspiring. Daryl, hand in hand with Sophia, led Brandi-Lynn into a room stacked half full of guns and ammo, body armour, and more. The green grey walls were lined with racks, and rifles and shot guns rested in purpose-built holders. A range of flare guns and smoke bomb canisters littered a table, and boxes of bullets were stacked underneath.  She looked longingly at a very modern compound bow, but reached instead for a small handgun she could hide on her person, and a knife she could slide into her boot. Any weapons she brandished on approaching the governor's walls would be removed from her instantly, she could save the fancy stuff for when she came back. 

If she came back.

She closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose, _there_ was a thought she really didn't want to be having. Of course she would come back. She opened her eyes and saw Sophia staring at her. Large blue eyes cold, small, young, body almost sinewed beyond it's years from life on the road. 

“Rick sees things. He sees Lori.” The little girl said solemnly, apropos of nothing. Brandi nodded at her, shrugging her shoulders simultaneously.

“Sometimes, when we lose people we love, we still think we see 'em.” Hell, she thought to herself, I'm surprised we all don't see more hallucinations. Sophia looked thoughtful. Brandi was just glad the girl was OK, and had the presence of mind to speak to her now, after a day of seemingly acting shy and un-trusting. She loved that kid. Loved her like her own. When she was looking for Daryl, hadn't she been looking for her, too?

"I never saw mama." Brandi smiled.

"Y'were lucky, ya had the chance to say g'bye. I get the feelin' Rick din’t have that with Lori." Daryl was shaking his head. No. 

"Will you come back?" Brandi frowned. Crouching low to the stained and cracked concrete floor, as the kid finally let go of Daryl's hand. He'd looked after her, he'd done that for his sister, she could tell. She could feel it. Shit, she could see, even then, Daryl would do anything for his sister. Even the quest of hers, in the long run, she  _would_  benefit. Michonne and Shane, too.

"I did once already, didn’t I?" She said to the kid eventually Sophia shrugged her impossibly narrow shoulders and shook her head, looking away and mumbling almost to herself.

"Might not again." Brandi was stunned into silence for a moment. She hadn't expected that, certainly not of the Sophia she knew. Or, had known. Who knew where that little girl was anymore?

"Ya very cynical." Brandi tried with a small smile "Ya’ve been hangin' with my brother too long." Sophia folded her arms and looked Brandi over with a cock of her head and a narrowing of her eyes which would have matched Daryl and Rick precisely. The girl had certainly had people to look up to, brand new father figures in her life. Brandi almost felt unnecessary.

"I’m realistic." Sophia said pointedly "You don't seem to be." Brandi was taken aback by the little girl's vehemence. Sophia had grown up, and she’d grown up fast. Looking over her again she saw her eyes were steely grey more than blue, and hard. Tired from almost a year on the road, fending for herself and her family. Hadn't Carl looked older than his years too? But having done what he had... Brandi didn't want to think about that. She couldn't think about it. Too many children were losing their mothers. 

"I'm coming back." Brandi spat, not meaning to be so harsh, but with emotion threatening to over come her hardened front, she had no choice but to force out the words. She looked at her brother, who instinctively curled a protective hand back around the little girl's "You believe me, at least, Don'cha Daryl?" Daryl chewed his lip for a moment, struggling not to look away.

"Always did, Brand," he said quietly "Ain't never doubted ya, ya know that." A lump grew in Brandi's throat and she span away from her brother, instead facing the back wall of the armory, studying the cracks that chased up the wall so she wouldn't cry. Clamping her teeth together, she squared her shoulders and raised her head, turning back when she trusted her emotions, to the team of two she had missed the most while they'd been apart. 

"I'mma go see Shane, any chance of a vehicle?"

* * *

  Shane was lying on the bottom bunk of the cell Brandi had slept in, his arms crossed behind his head, his dark t-shirt riding up to show the small amount of soft, curly, fur-like hair on his lower stomach, just above the waistband of his jeans. Bruises were still blooming there. The sight of his bare skin always made Brandi pause, take a breath, and have to compose herself, but in that moment, she just felt tired. The brown-red dried blood marks across the floor, the splatter of blood on the wall, seemed to have become duller in the few short hours since she was last there. The walls seemed greyer, the outlook for whoever stayed there appeared more bleak. 

"Shane?" She stepped in through the cage-like door and he moved his eyes to her.

"You're gonna go back to him?" He said, disbelieving, a waver in his voice she wasn't certain was due to his injuries. She turned and perched her ass on the very edge of the cot he all but overtook, and reached a hand out to his sore looking mouth, hesitating as he turned his head sharply from her fingers before they could light on his skin.

"I hafta" she said resignedly "For the good of all of us, Shane."

"You owe these people nothing." Shane spat, sitting up suddenly and barely missing the top bunk with his head. "They left you for dead. You forget that?" Brandi folded her arms and cocked her head to one side, sighing, exasperated.

"They saved our lives!" She shook her head "They saved you n let us in despite ancient history." She fought not to raise her voice, clenching her fists instead, creating crescent moon indentations where she squeezed almost hard enough to draw blood. She didn't want to leave on bad terms, just in case. She sniffed and sat next to him, relaxing her hands, pushing her bangs from her face. She was no longer the young woman who had been falsely coy to get his eyes all over her, she was no longer the woman who would thrust her chest and ass to get attention from men, so much had changed, and above all else she had grown the fuck up, but still she found herself pouting, looking up at him from lowered lashes. "I have to repay 'em somehow for gettin' ya back to me, Shane. I know I laughed, I know how that musta felt, but I feel the same. I:-

"Don't." He spat, cutting her off and standing abruptly. "You'll regret it if you say it, or I will. Go. Run back to The Governor. You'll see what happens. They all will. Maybe they'll understand that Merle is right." Brandi stood, nodding sadly, and walked out of the dusty cell. It was the last thing she wanted, and hoped Shane was just being macho for the sake of not showing his true feelings, his weakness, lest he get caught up in it and fall apart when she didn't return.

But she would. She'd promised the kid.

So she turned without a word and walked away from him, wanting to catch a few last moments with her brothers before she left. 

She wasn't expecting Shane's heavy footsteps behind her, rushing to catch her up. She didn't know he would grab her forearms and twist her forcefully to face him, or that he would press his lips against hers so roughly, kissing her hard and strong, before letting her go, and returning to the cell without a word. 

She was worried, as she walked on slightly unsteady legs, that he had been becoming the old Shane, that being in the vicinity of Rick just had that power over him. He'd been nothing but off with her since she'd re found him in the arena, and actually thought admitting her feelings might help. She sighed, she couldn't dwell. She had a very important job to do and she had to be in her right mind to do it. So she left Shane and his attitude, and his soft lips behind her, composing herself for the journey ahead.

* * *

 "Rick's gonna take ya girl Michonne into King County, see what they see." Daryl said, leaning into the car's window close to his sister's face, the Ford idling quietly as they waited for the awkward goodbyes to be over. "He's gonna take 'er and Carl, too. See if she's as good as ya say." Brandi rolled her eyes. 

"Y'all got trust issues, huh?" She said with a smirk, though she completely understood. There was never a day someone turning up in your life covered in blood was to be trusted. She looked out the windshield in the silence that followed, unsure what to do or say. Goodbye didn't feel right, and see you soon too optimistic. The air hung heavily with all the words no one was saying. 

"Got everythin' ya need, right?" Brandi smiled and nodded, finally daring to look up into Daryl's face. To anyone else, even Merle, he would have looked hard, narrow, but Brandi-Lynne knew her brother like no other, despite their recent absence in each other's lives, and she could read the concern all over him. She could feel it pouring from him in waves. All she wanted to do was jump out the car and throw her arms around his neck to comfort him, but she sat stock still, hands on the wheel, waiting for the moment to fizzle. He nodded minutely at her and stepped back to let others have their moment.

Brandi waited for Shane's curly head of hair, dark melting chocolate eyes, and broad nose to appear, but they didn't, and just as she was about to gun the engine, Daryl appeared again. 

Unexpectedly, without any pre-warning, He leaned in to the open window, and planted a kiss on Brandi's cheek. She frowned, he'd never done that. In all their years of growing up, playfighting, hugging, holding hands, sharing a bed. Not when mama died, not when he realised what daddy had done, not since the end of the world or before. Daryl had never put his lips on her cheek.  She snapped her mouth closed as he pulled away from the window, reaching a hand in to gently touch her shoulder.

"Come back, 'k?" He said quietly, and Brandi had no control over the quiver of her lip as the gate rolled open, and she drove carefully out of the prison grounds.

 


End file.
